What We Will Take Back
by Pyroflameburst
Summary: "Once we ruled the world. Now we've been reduced to hiding, building ourselves back up from the ground. We will have our world back, and those animals will know who they shouldn't have rebelled against all those millennia ago." At least, that's what my father always told me. Rating subject to change, basically on my whim.
1. Chapter 1

You know, I've always wondered what it would be like if humans DID exist in the universe of Zootopia. No, not a HIZ or some space timey-wimey dimensional shift blabbery from some super advanced version of ourselves, but if they existed in the universe already. I've not seen anyone (correct me if I'm wrong) take this approach before, and figured I might as well take a shot at it. If you have a better take on it or suggestions, feel free to throw em out there.

Note: Keep expectations where they should be, this is FanFiction, not a college exam.

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The City of Zootopia, the lands surrounding, and all other Nations have one thing in common, they all have the gift of sentient awareness, the ability to think and learn, and not act based just upon instinct. Many movies, plays, books, poems, and other forms of art have been made praising the coming together of predator and prey ever since that decisive date. Tens of thousands of years later, they've advanced into the early beginning of the information era. The populous, as a whole, continues life as normal, going day to day in their own activities and whatnot. Kits go to school, adults go to work, the elderly play scrabble. A few, however, have a different agenda than most. All celebrate the coming together of the two kinds of mammals, but almost no one asked one simple question.

"How do you think we gained the ability to think?"

"Seriously? We evolved, didn't you pay attention in biology class? I swear, you ask the dumbest things for someone that has the most qualifications out of all of us."

"Really, literally **every single mammal** spontaneously gained sentience at the **exact same time** ten thousand-ish years ago? And before you ask, yes, evolution is fact, duh, but it's always poked the back of my head that somehow all mammals at the same time went from… well… savage to-"

"Yeah, yeah, we've been over this conversation a million times, miracles happen, we'll figure it out eventually. Besides-"

The two heard a faint yell, and instantly knew they'd been at their one minute conversation two minutes too long, the door swung open faster than a normal mammal would have done, a horse walking in obviously about to give them an earful.

"Ryan, Violet, stop slacking off and get back to work, we're supposed to be making breakthroughs here, not dillydallying!"

"Damn horses and their hearing…"

"What was that Violet!?"

"Nothing, sir! I was just thinking that tie looks great on you!" She flashed a smile, knowing that he always fell for that one. After all, foxes were quick thinkers, but being able to use the same thing a thousand times in a row without the effect of diminishing returns? Best thing ever. Wolves, at least in Ryan's case… not so much.

"Yeah, and that suit, looks like you just ironed it!" Putting his paw up and giving a thumbs up with a smile that looked like it belonged to a used car salesman.

"…Ryan, I have one suit. That I have worn for the past two weeks. Which is just thrown into the only washing machine and dryer we have like everyone else's attire. We don't have an iron either, try harder next time. Or buy me a hay and clover burger from the nearest deli three hundred miles away across the ocean. Take your pick." He deadpanned. Ryan gave a nervous chuckle and his smile became a tad deformed, "Yeah, I'll work on my compliments, sorry about that." He gave a quick sigh, before moving on to a different topic "So, back to work. Say, Violet, didn't you have some old piece of weird looking metal object you were examining?"

"Yes…?" She looked at him confused, they'd had the thing for Three days and he chooses now to bring it up?

"Can it, Ryan. You're about as good as changing a subject as Violet is new compliments" and with that he left the small facility, more like a shack with five hundred thousand dollars worth of archeology equipment and two beds as stiff as a rock in it though, as Ryan liked to call it.

"He's right you know, did you really think he would catch on to your one compliment after saying it a million times?" She scoffed at his remark, "In all seriousness, why do you find that piece of metal so fascinating? You've been peering over the thing like it's suddenly going to transform into some advanced alien technology," he turned back to his side of the table and tossed a pencil into the air a few times before continuing "We have evidence of ancient buildings older than any recorded before, bones that don't match any animal on record, jewelry that seems like it was synthetically made because it's so precise and perfect… and you're gawking over a piece of…" he sighed, knowing he would get nowhere with her, "In all seriousness it looks like someone took some metal and melted it, then buried it a few feet in the ground here"

"That's because you haven't put it under a microscope. This is way more fascinating than some old rocks and bones. And no, it's not "melted", it's been underground for thousands of years. It was rusted, and after cleaning, this is what's left" she exchanged a lens in her microscope to zoom in more, moving the object to get better angles as well and sometimes lifting it slightly if need be. "See, look here, it looks like something fit in here and fed… another something into this small pocket here"

"So technical, I can see that Ph. D is paying for itself" Ryan chuckled.

"Shut up, what are you working on, anyway? Seeing that you want to get chewed out by Mr. Longface again"

"Eh, mostly trying to find out the composition of the material of the buildings that whatever mammal built this used, though it looks like a form of concrete. For about twenty thousand years old, this place is in amazing shape, surprised we didn't find it sooner"

"Surprised we didn't find an ancient village the size of twenty buildings about ten feet tall in a thick, uncharted jungle, really?" She turned to him, with a look that screamed "are you serious?"

"We have satellites with telescopes on them, you know, could just zoom in and probably find all the lost cities" He said, "though I doubt the government would even consider doing that" They could hear a soft siren ring for a few seconds, signaling dinner time, and sleep two hours after. Or as most called it, time to clock out. "You coming, Violet? They're serving cicadae and grasshopper burgers tonight, you know how rare those are"

"Grab me one, I'll keep trying to figure out what this thing is" she waved him off, too engrossed in her hunk of metal to eat, apparently.

"Huh, suit yourself, there aren't many of us predators here, I might be able to grab a few extra. Don't know if any will make it back to this shack though"

"And your bed will be missing everything except the springs if that happens" she turned toward him, eyes half closed in annoyance, obviously trying to actually work now.

"Fine, fine, don't get a knot in your fur"

"Excuse me?" too late though, he already closed the door and was walking away. "I swear, he can crack lame jokes at the most random of times, but somehow loses all common sense when there's any pressure," she turned her chair back to her station, putting in a different lens to get a closer look at the inner workings of the "thing". She tried to figure it out, but to no avail. A few minutes pass, and taps could be heard all around the room that got louder and more frequent as the seconds passed. Her ears perking up involuntarily "Just what we need, more rain…" she sighed. A few more minutes pass by, and chatter among her colleagues could be heard, probably sprinting back to their respective trailers or tents to avoid the onslaught outside.

Steps could be heard outside the door to the one she was in, however. A second later it flung open, slowly closing but was stopped by a foot. In came a water logged wolf with a box in one paw, four burgers in the other. She looked at him in amusement, a small grin forming at his unfortunate predicament. "Great weather out there, huh?" she mockingly asked.

"Oh, it's wonderful. You know, the lads and I were going to build a pool, but we didn't want to leave you out of the designing part. I can throw you out there if you want to see where it is" dropping the box carefully on the floor and tossing half the burgers over to her. Violet didn't have much of an appetite, though she knew it would come to bite her back if she didn't eat anything now instead of later. Ryan walked into the bedroom, a few seconds later he began again, his voice echoing off the walls "Do we seriously have no towels in here?!"

"We don't exactly live here, permanently anyway, so we don't exactly have a wardrobe. It's not like anyone prevented you from packing your own things, too" she yelled back. More ruffling, an object dropped with an ensuing yelp and some choice words. She almost jumped when Ryan yelled again much louder than normal "Found one!" and proceeded to walk out a minute later with a new change of clothes, wiping his ear with a pink towel. Wait, pink? She jumped out of her chair, yanking the towel out of his paws "Did you seriously just barge into my stuff for a towel?!" waving the cloth in his face.

"I knew you'd say no if I asked, besides, that's actually mine, kind of" he yanked it back from her and continued to wring out his ears. She looked at him confused "You really bought a pink towel?" she actually had to stifle a small laugh. He looked back up at her, using the towel as a sort of glove to poke slightly in his ear and wipe any guck that was itching on the inside of his ear. "Nope, it's my sisters, just happened to take it when it was laying on the hamper. Figured having one towel wouldn't hurt, just forgot about it is all. Oh, and before you ask, I DID in fact pack a few clothes, including a very nice black polo. I just chose to wear company things so that my actual clothes aren't ruined. Never understood why they chose white though, that shows all the stains..."

"Pft, okay, two questions. One-did you take those from your sister too? Two- why do you have a black polo, you might as well just put a polo sticker on your fur and call it a day" she paused "Please don't actually do that, that would be… really weird" he gave one loud laugh, "Hah, you'd like that, don't lie. Besides, if you didn't have our comanpy emblem on your uniform, others would think you're doing that too" that got him a death glare if he ever saw one, "Oh, lighten up" he tossed the towel into the bin they used as a makeshift hamper and walked over to her station, dragging his chair over and hopping onto it. "Sooooo, how's your little experiment going? Make and groundbreaking discoveries in the ten minutes I was busy?" she nodded side to side. "What about in the three entire days you've been looking at it?" again, another side to side nod. "So, three days, and you've got zip." He snorted "You know, you're probably delving way too far into this thing, it's destroyed way beyond whatever it was before, and it doesn't resemble anything we can use to go off of"

"Which is why it would be _great_ if you left me to find out what this is so we DO have something to go off of" clearly annoyed at his poking fun at her absence of progress in her little project. "Actually, you know what" she stood up and fully turned towards him and pointed. "If you're so amazing, why don't you try and figure this out? I mean, you're obviously omnipotent, so this should be a piece of cake!"

"Speaking of cake, they were going to make a few, but uh… thunderstorm" he sulked. "Stop dodging the question, Ryan" staring daggers at him. "Alright, _mother_ , give it here." She picked it up carefully, and set it down on his side of the table. "So, what tests have you done on this thing? I don't want to waste three more days just for you to tell me you already did those things"

"Well… let's see." Tapping a digit on her chin a few times recollecting, "Composition tests, mostly steel with what looks like some sort of nickel plating on it, well, what's left of it. Structural scans show a ton of pockets and what look like lines going through it, and a large chamber at this end. Then there's the obvious two foot long tube for the rest of it with a missing piece on the bottom. Looks like something attached and slid on it" pointing at certain places. "Took an X-ray of it a day ago, didn't show anything the structural scan didn't. I obviously didn't start cutting this thing open, since it's the only one we have in existence"

"We invented duct tape for a reason, just cut it open" he deadpanned. "Besides, even if that's the only one left, if we never find out what it was for, there's not much of a point in researching it" He took a marker from a small pile of writing utensils nearby, "I say we cut…" pausing when he had absolutely no idea where would be a good place to actually cut. "Why don't you mark it, you've been married to this thing for three days, so you probably know better" he lightly flipped the marker over to her. "I didn't even want to cut this thing, what makes you think I want to now? Finding out its purpose aside, it's a literal one-of-a-kind right now. Its historical value alone is what keeps me from cutting it. Besides, cutting it might break things that have just barely made it through cleaning, and I don't want any more damage on this thing than there already is." She tossed the marker back into the pile, sighing and rubbing her temples. "Look, just from the looks of it, it wasn't a part of some contraption or some ancient machine. It's meant to be held, at least, I think it was." She carefully picked it up again, holding the curved side in one paw, the straight length with her other. "If you look at it like this, there's a small ring like piece that looks like you could put a digit of your paw in. there's also what looks like a cut rectangular piece that used to slide open to put… whatever in"

"Sounds like a gun to me" he leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. "But that can't be right. Gunpowder wasn't really widely used until a thousand years ago. And most firearms are just pistols. That thing looks like nothing I've seen."

"…Wha? This looks _nothing_ like a firearm, like, at all. And like you said, it's too old to be one. If I had to guess, it's probably just some primitive farming equipment, but that makes no sense either, since the oldest evidence of refined steel wasn't discovered until the discovery of the Charmelo temples, only about 800 years old. That and there was nickel plating on it too. Nickel, Ryan. That wasn't even discovered until about 400 years ago, let alone produced. This is at the very least twenty thousand years old" she stared at it for a few moments, trying to think of anything that made any sense, but coming to no answer. She threw her arms up and groaned, "This makes no sense at all! It's ancient, but the technology needed to make this sort of thing is way too recent for that! Its shape makes it look like it was paw held, but there either isn't enough of it left, or I can't figure out just how it was supposed to be!" she let her head slam into the table, though not too hard, but enough to make an audible thump.

"Look, you're obviously frustrated, tired, you barely ate one burger, so hungry as well. Just get some sleep and get back to it tomorrow" he got up and started walking towards the bedroom, though stopped after a few steps. He gave a small chuckle and turned his head towards her, "Besides, it's not like the rest of us have managed to figure out much of anything about this place anyway" he leaned on the wall, trying to make sense of the place as a whole. "If you think of it, this place technically shouldn't even exist. The buildings are entirely made of concrete". Violet gave him a confused look, "So what?" He gave her a surprised look, "Seriously? Concrete doesn't last long at all if it isn't maintained regularly. Our concrete, at least, would probably crumble into dust in a few hundred years. A few hundred years, not twenty thousand plus". The only explanation I can think of for this place is that, One: We used to be as advanced as we are now, something happened, and we got sent back to our primal ways." He stopped, pausing for an obvious dramatic effect. When he didn't continue Violet took the obvious bait, "And what, pray tell, would be version two?"

"Aliens". He put his paws up, almost acting like a salesman trying to sell you something you obviously didn't need. That got a laugh out of Violet, she spoke through her laughter, somehow being able to speak clearly.

"Aliens… Really? I mean, I knew you were an alien conspiracy nut, but really?" her laughter slowed into a chuckle. Ryan shrugged, speaking up again.

"Going back to sane conversations, sleep would do some good for you" Ryan said.

"Yeah, sure. That alien joke was still horrible, though" she jabbed as she walked past him.

He gave a mock scoff, "I'll have you know that is a legitimate hypothesis!" Violet gave single sarcastic laugh in return. "I think it is, at least…" Ryan grumbled to himself, lost in thought for a few minutes before making his way to the bedroom as well. He was about two steps away before the ground gave a small shake, only for a couple seconds, but it was severe enough to jolt Violet slightly out of her near sleep state. Judging by the commotion heard from nearby tents and other research rooms nearby, enough to wake everyone else up as well. "Strange, we're in the middle of a tectonic plate, shouldn't have any earthquakes here…" he gave it a shrug, though "probably nothing" he looked back at Violet, now lightly snoring "The real question is how she can fall asleep so fast, it's been like, thirty seconds, snoring away already. Wish I could do that" he hopped into his bed, clothes were clean, so no need to change into anything to keep his bed clean. "Hope tomorrow goes better, make some progress at least" he thought to himself before drifting off.

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I know, not much in the way of progress on the first chapter. Wrote this as I went, though I already know from memory how I would write this story, however. If you like it, let me know, and please, if there's anything that I could improve upon, let me know. I don't consider myself a writer, let alone a good one. So I know for a fact that I can improve on basically everything.

Edit: Looking at the reviews, I did fix the dialouge in the chapter. I DID finish this one late a night, so I probably wasn't paying as much attention to paragraph structure as I should have. Ah well, fixed now.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello again. Not much to say, other than a thanks to MachineHeart. Like I said, not much of a writer, though I actually purposefully left the dialog like that, since I felt that if I made it conventionally spaced, it would look like one line paragraphs in some parts, which just look… weird to me. I'll try to improve on that though. Also, 54 views in four hours (as of writing this) actually surprised me. 54 doesn't sound like much to some people, but I like to imagine a room with "X" amount of people in it. Almost gives you stage fright, ah well.

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 _Rumble… shake… Rumble_. Ryan stared at the ceiling, unable to go to sleep like most others, except Violet that is. She apparently could sleep through a minor earthquake that has been going on for a better part of two hours now. The storm ceased, though, so that was a plus in his book. If it wasn't for the fact that his bed felt like a rock, it would almost feel like a massage chair. "Probably nothing. I just had to jinx it, didn't I" he turned to his side, taking his pillow from his head and crushing it on the other side of his head in an effort to sleep. No effect… "Guess I'm pulling a forty eight hour shift. Good thing we have coffee." He sighed, dragging himself out of bed, almost tripping on himself a bit since his muscles were in a relaxed state for about three hours now. He had just made his way into the small area converted to a kitchen when the ground went from a slight vibration to a violent shake. He stumbled, slammed into the wall and fell, with Violet finally waking as well. He groaned as he pulled himself up "Guess it's time to get under a table..." His ears perked as he heard rustling coming from the bedroom, a voice emerging a couple seconds later.

"Mmm, wha… *yawn* what time is it… one A.M.? Nope, sleep." A loud plop of a pillow was heard, snoring a few seconds later. Ryan rolled his eyes, three hours ago she was engrossed in her little project, now nothing mattered more than sleep. His thoughts were interrupted, as the ground shook even more violently than last time. Struggling to keep his balance, the shaking came to a slow halt. He swore he could see the cabin floor actually moving up and down during that last one, though. "Okay, no more messing around, this is getting serious. Violet! Wake up, looks like we're going to need to get under something!" he yelled. The only sound from the bedroom just sounded like mumbled gibberish. "I said, wake up! Earthquake, ground shaking, stuff falling!" he thought for a few seconds "The metal thingamajig got shattered into a million pieces!" that got her attention. A series of insanely fast thumps could he heard as she seemed to teleport right in from of him.

"What?! Where?! Oh this is just-" she looked at the table, "perfectly fine…" she looked back at him, a look of near anger at his audacity to disturb her precious sleep. "It's one in the morning. One. Sleep is a precious commodity around here, in case you didn't know!" she scolded. Ryan shushed her, something he didn't normally do, "too nice to be that rude" as he would say. "Okay, what's the real problem?" she asked.

"Wait, really? You didn't feel the earthquake going on for an entire two hours now?" Dumbfounded was the only word that came to his mind.

"…No?" she crossed her arms. The earthquake seemed to be happy to present itself to her, though. Both failed to keep their footing, and stumbled backwards, grasping at the nearest object to keep themselves on their feet. "Okay, yes. I've felt the earthquake. Why didn't you wake me up sooner?" the only reply was a shrug from Ryan. "Two hours is a long time, Ryan"

"It was just a slight shake at the time, it came and went, almost in a rhythm. It wasn't anything like it is now" the ground shook again, this time the lights spazzed, going dim to normal again and again. "Alright, this is getting bad Violet. An earthquake like this shouldn't be possible where we are. We're nowhere near the edge of a plate, and the ground is stable, so no internal plate fracturing." He still held onto the cabinet in case another shake came, and looked outside the window. A few things were toppled over, though nothing looked damaged. No ancient buildings collapsed, either. "Hide under a table time, please?" which garnered a nod from Violet. The two dashed to their rooms and grabbed their pillows, then made another dash for their researched table. They propped their pillows on top of them, just in case the table somehow gave in, they'd have some protection. The table itself wasn't heavy either, mostly made of hardened plastic. The quakes kept getting more and more severe, the lights fully went out after the fifth event. The sixth one, however, was the worst not by shaking alone, but what finally gave out outside of their facility. Sounds of stone collapsing could be heard from the outside. Both hoped it wasn't what they thought it was, but it was too risky to move from where they were. Six hours passed, and the earthquake finally abated. Neither of them fell asleep during the ordeal, in fear that if they did the shack would collapse on them in a twist of karma. After another hour, voices could be heard outside.

"Do you think it's safe now?" Violet broke the silence. Ryan thought for a bit, if there's voices outside, it probably was.

"Yeah, you stay here, I'll take a look" he crawled from under the table, moving aside basically everything that used to be on the table. His fears came to pass, as when he got to the window, the entire ancient town was now reduced to a heap of rocks, not one building left standing. "Hey, you know how I was poking fun at your little metal toy?" he asked her.

"Yeah. Wait… don't tell me" she crawled out as well, gasping when she saw the carnage the earthquake wrought. "Oh no. no, no, no, no, no. How could this happen?!" she panicked. "The oldest evidence of civilization… just… gone" she kept tapping her head on the glass "This. Is. Not. Happening." She kept repeating.

"Look on the bright side, at least we still have that impossible gun" Ryan scratched the back of his head, trying to think of something. "Besides, we might be able to salvage a few artifacts if we can manage to clear the rubble."

"Optimism isn't going to move thousands of tons of concrete, Ryan. We don't have any large scale equipment, or anything that we can use to move much of any of this as a matter of fact." Violet sighed, rubbing her temples, "If only we found this place a month or two earlier… we could've found out so much more about this place."

"If there's one, there might be more, possibly older, or close to, at least." Ryan said. He saw a few members of their team walking around or towards the ruins, "Come on, might as well join the rest of them" he didn't wait for her to respond, instead grabbing her arm and leading her out of the building. The two looked around when they got there a minute later. Nothing left, the buildings didn't look like they toppled over. Instead it seemed like the very foundation gave out, so they fell almost straight down, anything inside of them was surely destroyed. Violet broke out in anger at the full sight.

"I can't believe this! We've barely managed to set up shop here a few weeks ago, now everything's gone!" she kicked a small rock in frustration. "All that work… gone. All we have is my little metal mystery and a few samples of the buildings. Guess we have a lot more samples now, though." Violet rambled. She sat down in the damp grass, putting her head on the tip of her knees and tugging her ears. "All of the history…"

"Right… Well, while you sulk, I'm going to go see if anything survived the impossible." Ryan looked to his left side, towards the ruins, "Might find a friend for your little toy, who knows"

"Yeah, sure, you go do that. I'm just gonna…" she sighed, "Sit here and sulk"

Ryan shrugged, he knew nothing he said or did would get her out of that mood. He made his way to his colleagues.

"Hey, Ryan. What a shit-show, am I right?" one said to him. "Entire fuckin' place is just a pile a' rock now. Can't move anything, there's no way and earth movers or equipment is gonna be sent. Place is a bust" he reached in his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. "Want one?" Ryan waved it off, "Eh, suit yer'self, these are nice ones"

"You know I don't smoke, Fang" Ryan chuckled.

"Be a good time to start, I'd say. Hell, ya probably are gonna be after the boss calls the meeting to leave. Ya know how pissed he's gonna be."

"He's always mad" Ryan deadpanned.

"So you think steam'll shoot outa his ears?" Fang laughed while asking.

"Who knows? All I know is I'm going to start looking around the place, might find one intact thing in this mess" Ryan started walking towards the rubble. Fang gave a single laugh.

"Exactly, mess. Yer' probably only gonna find more rocks. Besides, it ain't like we found much stuff other than your partner's do-hickey" He turned and walked towards the group amassing near the ruins.

"Only one way to find out…" Ryan said aloud to himself. A few others were scrounging the rubble with the same goal in mind. No one took the far left side though, being that that side was barely even touched before the earthquake. He worked his way up and around the small boulders and rocks, finally getting to the edge of the former town. He took a wide gaze, nothing but sun bleached ancient concrete in view. He moved what rocks he could for a bit, going place to place, with no success. "Oh look, another rock. Knew I'd find one eventually" he said sarcastically. He tossed the small piece of concrete far away in frustration.

 _Ting_. His ears perked and moved towards the metallic sound. "Well, that's convenient. Thanks Rock God!" he smirked. He made his way to about where the sound came from. Nothing really sticking out. "I'm not going crazy, right? That definitely sounded like something metallic" he knew he was getting pressed for time. The others were going to call for him to come back any second now, and probably wouldn't bother coming to look for a "maybe found something" incident. He stomped his foot on the ground in frustration, but it didn't' feel like dirt under his foot. He raised an eyebrow in confusion and looked down. "Definitely dirt… but…" he started wiping, two swipes revealed a trap door. "Well, hello there…" he looked around, "Probably was in a house before it collapsed… but they fell straight down, this looks like it's just out in the open…" he continued to stare at it. Should he open it? It's not like some monster is going to pop out, the most dangerous thing is probably tetanus from a rusty piece of metal. "Ah, screw it" he pried open the rusty door, creaking loudly and slamming into the ground. "Heavy…" he panted. He tried to look inside, somewhat dark, but slightly illuminated by the sunlight that was starting to shine through the low canopy of jungle trees. He took his phone out of his pocket, turning the flashlight on. "Alright, got a ladder, rusty as can be, should be careful going down it…" he made his way down, testing each step to make sure it wouldn't give out. "For some twenty whatever-year old ladder, thing still holds weight. Whoever built this place made it to last… except against giant earthquakes. Thing was probably… what, an 8.0 plus?" he moved through the small room, completely empty.

"Great, a giant waste of my time" he sighed. He looked a bit more, just to be sure he hadn't missed anything "come on… why have a cellar without having anything in it?" He groaned. He heard footsteps nearby, and turned towards the door.

"Ryan? Ryan, you out there?" someone called for him.

"Yeah, down here!" Ryan called back.

"Very precise, come back up, we're having a meeting in a few minutes!" the voice shouted back, the footsteps getting softer and more distant.

"Yeah, be right up!" He yelled. He started to make his way to the ladder, but heard a small crushing sound, almost like a- _swoosh_. Ryan's vision started to fade, and collapsed onto the ground within a few seconds. Unfamiliar and distorted voices started talking quietly, he couldn't make out what they were saying though. Soon everything faded to black and he was completely out cold.

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Ringing, loud, painful ringing and a blinding white light was the first thing his senses picked up when he came to. He tried to rub his eyes, but he couldn't move his arms, in fact, he couldn't move at all! "Wha?! Where… who…?" his vision started to clear, the ringing slowly going away. He started to think to himself, "Okay, this is a dream. A bad, bad dream. I'm going to close my eyes, count to three…" he opened he eyes, "Nope, still here." He looked at what was bounding him when he could fully see, a metal chair with metal braided rope "No cutting my way out of this…" He looked around to get his bearings. A small room, no more than a couple meters in width and length, painted white, that'd explain his temporary whiteout. The floor was tiled, but plain white as well. He saw what looked like a mirror to his right. "A one way mirror maybe? Come on, I'm not that exiting." He tried to move again, but the metal rope wasn't going to budge anytime soon. All he could do was wait for… whoever or whatever put him here.

 _Click_. His eyes widened slightly as he tried to turn behind him to confront the noise, but he could only get a slight look over his shoulder, and couldn't see anything. Nothing on his other shoulder, either. "…You know… I'm really hoping this isn't aliens." He said aloud. A whoosh of air blew lightly past him as he heard something open. He heard footsteps walking towards him, but stopped only a few feet away. Too terrified to look back or speak, he was seemingly petrified. His eyes were fully open and dilated, fur strands on end, tail tucked as close to him as possible. Another step to his left. He could feel whatever it was looming over him, almost as if it was studying him. He held his breath "Maybe if I turn into a statue, they'll leave me alone. Yeah, yeah let's try that!" he thought. Perfectly still, he heard three steps to his right. The sound of pencil on paper was heard, and whatever it was left a few moments later after finishing. After what felt like forever after the door closed, he let out the most relieved breath he ever had.

"Still alive, still alive. Heh… heh…" he leaned a bit back into the chair, but the door soon opened again. All his muscles clenched again, "No no no no no. Where's the train to anywhere-but-here'sville?!" he screamed in his mind. He heard three separate sets of steps coming towards him. "Totally going to die. This sucks so much. Why did it have to-Fuuuuuahahaha" he clenched his teeth as he felt a gloved paw run lightly over his ear, plucking a single strand of fur off. He didn't dare wince at the slight pain and soreness of the violated fur follicle. The sound of a plastic bag zipping up, and the mystery monsters walked away again.

"Okay, not dead. At this point I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not." He flicked his ear quickly back and forth to try and get rid of the now itchy feeling on his ear. Again, the door opened. "Oh, not again!" he accidentally groaned. The footsteps stopped, farther than normal. "Wait, did I just say that out loud?" his pupils shrank. He gulped, "Stupid, stupid, stupid-!" he whispered to himself. The steps came to his side, if he could muster the courage to turn his head he could actually see whatever it was, but such courage was nowhere to be found. He couldn't hold his breath any longer, and gasped for air. He was starting to panic, even as he knew and tried to fight it, panic was overtaking him. He had to say something, do something.

"L-Look, I don't know what I did, but uh… I'm-I'm sure we can work something…" he finally turned his head. If this was a mammal, it wasn't shaped like one he had seen before. It was covered head to toe in a white fabric suit, with a small slit, for eyesight presumably. He stopped talking, and he felt his ears pressing even harder against his skull, tail tucking closer. He started rapidly breathing, desperately trying to think, but in his state of panic he just blurted out the first time to come to mind, "Look, come on, I swear I didn't do anything" he barely could even hear himself talk with the last few words. The mystery mammal leaned in slightly, causing Ryan to move as far away as possible in his chair. It moved back, waved its paw, some sort of signal, and the other two left the room with him.

"I swear, I'm going to have a heart attack" he was sweating profusely at this point, almost coming to tears at one point. The door didn't open again though, and he started to calm down, letting him think. A thought crossed his mind, "What about the others? What happened to them? Are they in the same state as me? What if the door didn't open because they're doing something to them now instead?" He looked around, trying to think of an escape. Wait, metal chair and metal rope. Yeah, no escape, forgot about that part. More time passed, but with Ryan's new theories, it didn't bring him any comfort. His left leg started to itch, and he looked down. A small patch of fur had been shaved off, and a bandage over a spot on his skin. "Okay… piece of my fur… blood sample… probably took down what I look like…" his mind raced, but couldn't think of anything, so he fell back on his original thought. "Gotta be aliens. Oh man, what're they going to do to me? Rip my face open and turn me into some monster? Brain control to subliminally convert others? Turn me into a potato just for laughs?!" He started talking aloud. The door opened, only one pair of footsteps was heard. Ryan came up with the only thing his mind could muster. If he was going to be turned into some lab experiment, he wasn't going to take it laying down.

 _Slam_. Ryan's chair was thrown to the ground, him along with it. Okay, he was going to take this laying down. He managed to keep his head from slamming into the hard floor, and turned to look up. Another full suited "alien" was knelt beside him, a syringe in one… paw? Weirdest paw he had ever seen, even with the gloves. That wasn't what worried him, what was in that syringe? "Oh no, you are not putting ANYTHING in me, no no no-mmph-!" it grabbed his muzzle and held it shut. Ryan started rapidly breathing again, thrashing, and trying to get out as hard as he could. He felt a prick, and sucked in air through his nose when the syringes contents were injected into his neck. He expected immense pain, or something horrible at the very least. He felt nothing though, but they put something in him, maybe it just took time? Finally, after a few minutes the alien spoke into what looked like some recording device.

"Number 15. 4F." was all it said. Immediately after it left the room, the lights shutting off a few moments later. Ryan was left tied to an already uncomfortable chair, now made even more-so by being on the ground in complete darkness. His stomach grumbled, that's right… It'd been at a minimum nine hours since he last ate, probably more. He felt his stomach drop on the thought later. What happens if I can't get out of here? I'm I going to starve to death, what about water?" his fears were too much, and he started to silently weep himself to sleep.

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"Hey, Violet, where's Ryan? I told you to go get him, we have a meeting to start!" her boss yelled.

"I did just a few minutes ago, he should be up here any time now. He was just in some cellar near a collapsed building" she waved him off.

"Oh? What if he can't get out? Did you SEE him get out?" he questioned her.

"Well, no but… fine, I'll go back and make sure he's not still sitting there" she turned back to where she heard Ryan. She saw the door to the cellar open, so that's where he was, or so she thought. She climbed down the ladder, the room was completely empty. "Huh… maybe he went the wrong way?" she looked around again, "No… he's not that stupid," something didn't feel right, something off. Her fur strands started to stand on end. His scent was still fresh, as in, literally one minute ago fresh. She felt butterflies in her stomach, her senses screaming danger at her. "Wellhesnotherebettergobackup!" she dashed up the ladder as if some demon was chasing after her. She immediately turned towards the cellar door, expecting something to jump out at her, but nothing came. She turned and made a run for it to tell the others he wasn't in the cellar, and just to be with others-the whole strength in numbers thing. She could have sworn she heard a metallic slam a few seconds after she started running, but that just made her sprint faster. A few minutes later she came upon the group, settings her paws on both her knees as she leaned down a bit to catch her breath.

"Violet? Where's Ryan? Why do you look like you just ran a marathon?" A random colleague said.

"Cellar… No Ryan… Scary…" she panted in between words. A horse pushed through the small crowd that started to form. Violet could swear she saw something other than anger on his face for once, but that thought was erased when he stared talking.

"Violet, I gave you a simple task. Go. Get. Ryan. Where is he?"

"I- I don't know. He was in the cellar, when I last heard from him. I went back and climbed down, it still smelt like he was there not even a minute before I got there. But… Something felt off, like I was being… watched. I just ran, I think I heard the cellar door close behind me." She looked towards the direction of the cellar. "Look, I don't want to jump to anything, but I think someone is out here. Whoever it was got Ryan" she recollected the moments before. The horse looked at her, she was definitely spooked out of her fur, no lie there. "Let's say Ryan was indeed taken. You said it smelt like he was there not a minute ago, yet if that were true, you should have seen him on your way there. The jungle here is sparse, so there aren't many places to hide. Are you sure there wasn't some other door you missed?"

"I don't know, I ran as soon as I felt something off, I told you that!" She started to freak out a bit, but calmed quickly, sighing. "Look, maybe it was just my mind playing a trick on me, so why not let me take a few guys back with me? If there's a door to wherever, I'm sure more than one mammal will be useful"

"Fine" he pointed to three random mammals, "You three, go with her." He turned back to Violet, "You've got half an hour, after that, the evacuation team is coming. You miss it, you're on your own"

"Thank you" she let out a breath of relief. The four headed towards the cellar, the rest of the group made their way back to the camp and waited for their ride back to civilization. Once they got to the cellar door, it indeed was shut.

"You're sure that it shut by itself? No gust of wind or you shut it in your panic?" one chimed.

"No, I never touched it. And it wasn't standing up, it was opened fully, as in laying on the ground fully." She crossed her arms, almost hugging herself. She narrowed her eyes at the door, fearing that if she opened it, whatever closed it was going to come out and attack.

"Well, half a' hour is a half a' hour. Time's a' wastin'." The second said, already impatient. He grabbed the door and flung it open. No monsters to be found jumping out. He took a flashlight out and shined it in through the door. "Goin' down" he made his way down the ladder, the rest followed suit. "You've got the best nose out'a us Violet, still smell em?"

"Yeah, bit fainter" she started to cautiously walk around, but stopped at a wall. "It's like he just… phased through the wall here" she tapped it, but the sound wasn't a hard tap, but a hollow thud. She turned towards the other three, signaling them to come over.

"Well I'll be" the third finally spoke up. "Hidden door, whoever lives here REALLY doesn't want to be found. Find the latch?" he looked at her.

"No, feel around the thing, it's probably hidden like the door is." The four started rubbing their paws on the wall, waiting to find that magical spot. A few moments later, a small part of the wall seemed to give in, but stopped.

"Think I found it" he pulled on the latch, the door slowly opening. Light emanated from the new passageway.

"What the…?" Violet stared in shock. A series of lights on the ceiling stretched to the end of the hall, where it turned to the right to continue. "Okay, I vote we tell the others before we all end up dying in the hallway of hell, any objections?" The other three shook their heads in agreement. They headed back up to tell the rest of the group the news. Unbeknownst to them, a hidden camera in the ceiling traced them until they climbed above ground.

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Ryan awoke again, but to complete darkness this time. "Ah, that's right. They threw me over and turned the lights out." He thought. Wait, that syringe! It… didn't have any effect? He moved his legs, arms, tail, and all other body parts to make sure they hadn't mutated in some way. Still in one piece. He felt a small amount of relief, but was still worried sick at all the possibilities. He had to get out somehow, but how? They'd have to somehow untie him from the chair, then he'd have to fight his way out. Knowing that they have darts that made you unconscious before you hit the ground, there wouldn't be any room for errors. He lay there, plotting his escape, however little of a chance there was. It felt like hours later, but he couldn't tell, but the door opened again, lights turning on with two sets of footsteps accompanying them. One of them grabbed his chair and put it back upright, then put a chair in front of him. A different one walked in front of him. Wait, this one didn't have a suit on? It sat in the chair, staring at him, and him back. Judging by its figure, it was definitely female. Weirdest thing was that it had basically no fur, but had quite an amount on her head, tied up into what looked like a ponytail.

"Uh…" he was beyond confused. First it seemed like they were near torturing him, now they're having a staring contest. What kind of game are they playing?

"Name?" She spoke. Ryan hadn't expected such a normal question, thinking of something more along the lines of "we are going to torture you for all you know and then kill you" sort of thing. His mouth opened slightly in shock, not being able to speak for a few seconds, but coming to his senses afterward.

"R-Ryan…" he hesitantly spoke. He heard the other one leave, the door shutting.

"Mhm… Well "Ryan", it seems you've been caught in quite a situation, haven't you?" she crossed her left leg, putting her elbows on it and using her arms to use as a stand to rest her head. "You were in that town, yes?"

"Uh…" he stuttered a bit, "Yeah… we were just… excavating the town. Well, before it got leveled by the earthquake" he finished. He heard her chuckle a bit. "What's so funny?" he accused.

"That wasn't an earthquake, we leveled that town on purpose" she said.

"What? Why?! That place is-" he was cut off

"Evidence of our existence, which we would like to either destroy or keep hidden. Have you savages forgotten after so long?" her slight smile turned into a frown.

"Evidence, savages? What are you talking about?! We are _not_ savages! What evidence are you talking about anyway? What, you guys lived up there until recently?" He was getting a bit agitated at her savage insult, but still confused at their deliberate destruction of such a piece of history.

"Like I said, evidence that we exist. Now that you've been here, you are too." She sighed and switched legs for support of her arms.

"What, so you're going to kill me then?" He accused.

"Depends on what I feel like doing. That satisfy your question?" she said. Tension was starting to fill the air, anger on both sides was felt. Ryan couldn't figure out why she was getting angry as well, though.

"Why are you hiding, no, what are you hiding _from_?"

"From you beasts" she deadpanned. Ryan was taken aback. From us? Why? No one even knows these things exist, why would they be hiding? "But, like I said, you've completely forgotten about us apparently. That makes things much easier, then"

"Easier? Wha-what are you talking about. Hold up, that syringe, are you trying to make some poison to kill us or something?!" he was terrified at this point. Were they seriously plotting to take over the world or something?

"Poison? Oh, no, nothing that drastic. Think of it as reverting you back to what you should be."

"Should be? I _should_ be back on the surface, leaving to go back home!" he yelled.

"No, you should be running in a forest, or in some zoo. Not living in some city in mockery of our achievements that you took from us!" she yelled back. "I should be glad that you animals were too stupid to actually invent your own technology instead of stealing it from us, though" she stood up. "We've waited so long for this, now that we know your kind aren't still actively hunting us down, we can work more aggressively." She started to walk to the door. Ryan had too many questions, questions that needed answering.

"Wait!" he yelled. Her stopped talking, and sounded like she turned around. "What in the hell are you talking about? What technology did we steal? And what do you mean hunting you? The only hunting that's existed for thousands of years is just fish hunting!"

"You want answers? Fine, I'll give you answers. Not like you'll be leaving here anytime soon." She motioned to the one way mirror, the door opened with another white suited one coming in. It walked towards Ryan with another syringe in its paw, and injected the contents into his neck. Ryan felt woozy, another tranquilizer…

"You sun _ofa…_ " was all he could get out before succumbing to sleep, rolling over to one side.

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Well, I think that went fairly well. Hit a stump or two on whether I should reveal when humans would reveal themselves. The hidden door seemed a little cliché, but I feel it was justified in this scenario. Being that hiding underground, humans would have to go above ground from time to time to collect things that are just impossible to create in a lab or grown underground. A hidden door in an abandoned ancient town would be a perfect spot to conceal and take any eyes away that might get suspicious.

Anywho, I'll continue this when I've time. Till' then, later.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello again, I've a few things to say to the commenters in the reviews- just to clear a few things up.

Zillafan: While sentient animals and the like are a bit in the realm of fantasy, having straight up LOTR invade isn't really (IE: At all) what I had in mind-maybe a different story for a different time.

AK74FU2: Er… Sorry if I made you change your mind on the direction of your story? I don't know whether I should feel bad or good about that, honestly.

Guest (Y U NO SIGN IN): Introductions will be made, won't spoil how though :)

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Violet and her companions booked it back to the meeting group, who seemed like they were just finishing packing up to leave. All of them came back out of breath, catching the attention of everyone. Violet walked up to her boss, and explained the situation to him.

"A hidden door? Ryan isn't stupid, he wouldn't just go exploring when he knows we're going to leave soon." The horse sighed, "However… I can delay the schedule by an hour more if need be. I don't plan on leaving him lost here either if avoidable." Violets eyes lightened up, so they were going to save him after all? "But! We aren't going to be the ones rescuing. We're archeologists, not spelunkers or a rescue team. I'll call one in, they should be able to fly in within a few hours. Given the information you've told me, that tunnel would be the first place I'll tell them to explore." The horse motioned to a few of his subordinates to follow him.

"A-But, wait! He might not have hours!" Violet ran in front of the horse, "what if he's bleeding out or hit his head on something in the tunnel? Or is lost and waiting hours more will make it even worse?"

"Violet, I'm going to make one thing absolutely, crystal clear. This jungle is completely unmapped, unexplored, and full of unknown dangers. I'm not going to risk four lives of mammals who aren't even trained to go on a rescue mission to _maybe_ rescue one life, and that's that. Got it?" he said in a stern tone. Violets ears flattened, giving him a glare of disapproval. Deep down though, she knew he was right. That tunnel could be full of traps, or rotted out wood boards from an old staircase somewhere down the line. All she could do was hop on the trucks that were due to arrive in a few minutes and hope they found her friend, hopefully alive.

 _Drip… Drip._ She felt a soft liquid fall on her a few times, looking up. Dark clouds were rapidly forming, another thunderstorm. On cue, though, the trucks arrived saving her from getting drenched. As soon as the doors were closed, a sheet of rain started to fall, not a moment too soon. Looking out the back window as the jungle town started to get smaller and smaller, soon covered by the jungle itself, she couldn't help but worry he was in grave danger. That feeling she got when she was alone in that cellar the first time. She couldn't shake it no matter how hard she tried. The feeling of something watching you, like some monster lurking in the shadows. She felt a shiver up her spine at the memory, and started tapping her paw on the door's arm rest. "Please be okay, Ryan." She whispered.

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" _When should he be waking up?"_

" _Could've been five minutes ago, just give a bit"_

" _I don't see why we're keeping him alive, we can still test with a dead specimen. We already got that from the blood samples and fair follicle anyway. We should've gotten rid of him by now, what's the president thinking keeping that thing here anyway? If he somehow got out, we're all screwed! Also, showing him our history? What's the point? He's not going to be alive much longer anyway"_

" _Maybe to get some sort of satisfaction? Who knows, once he sees the things their kind did, he might break? She's been acting strange ever since he got him, though"_

" _Yeah, just a bit. Anyway, those things have about as much empathy as a rock. I'm just waiting for him to try and attack or escape, finally be able to shoot the thing."_

" _Stop being paranoid, he doesn't even know how he got in here, let alone how to escape. Doubt he's stupid enough to attack any of us anyway"_

…

" _He still should be strapped to the chair"_

Ryan was awake, but about ten minutes ago. He kept playing possum, since when he woke he heard voices. Listening to the conversation outside the door was… unsettling to say the least. He couldn't understand a portion of what they were saying when he first woke up, but his senses have since cleared. He heard a click, following the swoosh of air passing by with the door opening. One of his captors came over, probably to see if he was even alive at this point. Ryan knew faking sleep wouldn't work any longer, so decided to "just" wake up.

"Ugh, you guys need cushions on these things, back is killing me" He stretched his arms with a mocking tone. Wait, they were being serious about that last sentence? He wasn't bound? How had he not noticed ten minutes ago? Ryan thought about it for a second, probably being strapped for an entire two days, he just got used to the feeling.

"These chairs aren't meant to be comfortable, quite the opposite." The same female from before approached from behind, an assistant of some sort dragging a fairly large television behind on a cart. The assistant left, closing the door behind with an audible click, signaling that it was locked. "You wanted answers for how we act? For why we think of you the way we do?" her tone was still spiteful, but just a bit less this time around.

"It'd be nice. You wouldn't happen to have any popcorn around would you? I'm a bit hungry after not eating or drinking for two entire days" Ryan smirked, if he was going to die in here, he'd make sure it was on his terms. His terms being, annoying the living hell out of them.

"I really could not care less about what you want or need. Don't try to joke around us, either. I don't find anything you say funny nor will I ever." She took a remote that was set by the T.V. and turned it on, scrolling through the different input options, settling on DVD. "Now shut up and watch, and you'll understand why we're going to put you back where you belong" she walked to the edge of the room.

"And like _I_ said, I belong on-" he was cut off "I said I don't care, now shut up and watch or I'll have you sent to the lab immediately instead of later." That shut him up. So he really was going to die being some experiment? This just keeps getting better and better…

"Just one question, it's been in the back of my mind. Promise it isn't anything bad."

"What." She put a sharpness on the T, obviously getting annoyed.

"What are you mammals anyway?" Ryan asked. She didn't respond, choosing to ignore him instead.

The female flipped through a few options and started the DVD. A few seconds of black, then another figure appeared. This seemed like the male of their species, judging by how drastically different it looked to the one beside him.

"Hello. If you are watching this, it means the worst has come to pass. You are one of the last underground cities constructed in the wake of the crisis. In the information center are thousands of books, computers, and information on all of our technologies we could put in there, top secret or not. It's unfortunate it's come to this, but it's too late to regret it now. As it stands, you must act as if you are the last humans on Earth. Perhaps, with enough time or luck, you can take what's ours back." A series of explosions could be heard, another voice spoke.

"Sir, we're running out of time."

"I know, I know. One last thing. Do not trust any animals, specifically mammals. They are deceiving, and will kill you the first chance they get. Assume all have been infected, and kill any that could expose you. We've already cured the aquatic life and insects, so there is no need to worry about them. However, we didn't have enough time to develop a cure for most of the mammal kingdom. Now, we're out of time, and out of hope. Hopefully you, the future of our species, can-" this time, a door being broken down was heard.

"Sir, we're out of time, we need to move now!" the video ended a few seconds later. The "female human" as he now knew, took the DVD out, and set it on the desk by the T.V. Silence enveloped the room, until the female spoke up.

"Do you get it now? You're a product of an experiment that went horribly wrong. Because of that, more than seven billion people died in the span of two years. We have a right to hate you, for what your kind has done. We have a right to just kill you, whether you present a threat at the moment or not. Your kind tried to kill all of us off. Now that we have the upper hand, it's time to return the favor." She had her arms crossed, staring daggers at Ryan.

"… Are you stupid?" he said in the most monotonous voice he had ever.

"Excuse me?" she was shocked at his audacity to say something like that, just after being shown how horrible his kind was.

"I asked you if you're stupid" he shook his head a second later, continuing "So let me get this straight. We used to be savage, you had some sort of experiment, or whatever. It goes wrong, infects everything-which is weird considering the DNA differences… Anyway, now, thousands of years later you still think we're responsible for what our ancestors ancestors did?!" he raised his voice, did this species really believe that mammal kind was still responsible for what happened back then? "Whatever we were like back then, we are _nothing_ like that now." He finished.

"You are a threat and a plague on this world! Who cares if it happened twenty five thousand years ago? You're still the same animals, the same failed experiment. If you had the chance, you would try to kill me, just like he said!" she pointed to the T.V.

"Did I try to kill you when I woke up? What about right now? I'm untied, I could kill you in a matter of seconds." He signaled he was not bound anymore.

"Oh? Try getting up, I'm sure you'll have a great time." She pointed to the bottom of the chair. Ryan peered over, trying to look. "If you so much as lift a centimeter off the chair, prongs will shoot out of the holes under your legs, giving you quite the shock until your hearts stops beating. I'm completely safe, you really think we're so careless? You're dumber than I thought" she scoffed. Ryan felt anger building up in him, they really did not know when to let go of the past, did they?

"Look. Like you said, twenty five THOUSAND years! We aren't some monsters waiting for you to slip up, we aren't trying to kill you!" He slammed his paws on the arm rests. "I can guarantee you, if you went up to the surface, to one of our cities, nothing would happen to you. Sure, you'd get weird looks, but why wouldn't you? No one knows you humans even exist! You've been hiding underground, obviously brainwashing generation after generation of kits to hate us, just like you do. Let me ask you this, before you send me off to my death by experimentation. Aside from your hatred and distain of us, and our species being different, what's so different about us individually? You can't really believe that we're responsible for something that happened that freaking long ago."

"Oh? I can't?" she walked over to him, standing about two feet away. "If it wasn't for your kind deciding you should own the world, we could have made so many advancements. We could be settling new planets, extend lifetimes into the hundreds as a minimum, discover an unlimited source of electricity and power. But no, you animals for whatever reason, decided you were better than us. Now we've been forced to live underground, do you think we enjoy this? Do you think we enjoy having up until now, thought you beasts were still hunting us, trying to wipe us out once and for all? Do you think we enjoy eating literally the same thing over and over again?" She was rambling, and Ryan tired of it quickly.

"And I told you not even three minutes ago that if you go up there, nothing will happen!" he interrupted. "I've told you at least three times now. We are not the same as back then, so give us a chance before you decide to go to war with the entire world! Do you think you even have a chance against us even if you did?"

"You copied our technology, and didn't even do a very good job at many parts of it. Especially your military technology. Do you think we aren't prepared for this?" she had a small smirk, and gave a small huff of a laugh. "We've been focusing on rebuilding ourselves, sure. But we haven't neglected rebuilding our military might. Just because you have millions of animals to throw at us, does not mean you'll win."

"And what if you somehow take over the world again? Will you just kill all of us, just like you say we are trying to do?"

"It's different in our case" she responded.

"HOW?! You're doing the same thing! For all intents and purposes, you lost a war, badly. But that doesn't give you the right to try and get revenge when the ones responsible have been dead for millennia! How can you humans hold a grudge like this for so long? Just let it go!" that earned him a hard slap across the face from her.

"Let the past go? The past is all we have!" she was now yelling. Ryan felt like he was talking to a wall. She seriously thinks that nothing has changed since that video was recorded. In a way though, he felt a bit of pity and sorrow for her, and probably the rest of the humans living down here. Living in constant fear that at any moment, a sworn enemy will swoop in and kill you? No wonder they're paranoid.

"Exactly, the _past_. We are not living in the _past_. We are living in the _present_. The _past_ is over, no one alive then is alive now. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but none of us want to hurt you, we don't even know that you exist." He strained his words as much as possible, trying to get through her paranoia. "I get it, to you I'm a monster that wants to kill you all. I'm just deceiving you until I get the perfect moment to strike. You live in fear that this just might be your last day. You've prepared for it, sure, but you still live in fear of that thought." He finished. The female was silent, either at a loss for words at how he actually understood, or just preparing another strike. Ryan figured it was the latter. He thought for a bit, and continued "Are we all good? No, not by a long shot. Just recently we put a mayor in prison for a conspiracy against the populous." Just pry a bit further… "I know that to you, I'll never deserve any trust, but I'm going to ask you to trust me anyway. Go up there, take a look for yourself. Don't take my word for it that we aren't all bad. I'm sure you can disguise yourself, so just go into a city and just walk around." He finished. The human was giving him a dumbfounded look, as if he just said the single dumbest thing she had ever heard. She rubbed her temples before speaking.

"My god… you really are an idiot. We. Cannot. Trust. You. What part of that do you not understand? I'm not going to risk everything we have for an _if_ scenario. You will be tested upon, thereafter discarded. Got it?"

"Okay, I am NOT going to be some project for you guys." He nearly stood up from his chair, but remembered the shock-death that would ensue if he did.

"You don't have a choice, shouldn't have been snooping around so close to an entrance." She waved him off. "Besides, we'll sedate you. Mostly to make it easier for us, but a side effect is that you won't feel any pain." She started to walk towards the door, and was only a few feet away.

"I'm going to die if I stay here, I have to at least try." He thought. Now or never, he figured. He shot up from the chair, the prongs shot out, but instead of getting up the normal way, he used his arms to propel himself upwards, making the chair lean forward, which in turn made the prongs miss completely. The chair and he collapsed, making the female turn around. He darted up, making a mad dash towards her, which in turn, made her frantically try to hit the switch to dive under the door. Luck wasn't on her side, as he grabbed her arm just as she was about to hit the switch. Commotion could be heard outside, they obviously were watching them and were on alert. Ryan saw a button with the words "Emergency lock" and smashed it with his free paw. Three bars shot out in front of the door, securing it from opening. The female managed to break free of his grip, and leapt back a few feet. Ryan didn't notice until now, probably because he was stuck in a chair for the better part of two days, but she was surprisingly shorter than him by a good half foot. Taking her down would be a lot easier with his height advantage.

"Crafty" she said, "I'll give you animals that" she quickly lifted the side of her shirt, revealing a pistol in a small holster. "But you really can't think I would come in here unprotected" she took a stance, pointing the firearm at him. Ryan felt a shiver in his spine, there's no way he could dodge a bullet, and knowing this species and their apparent "advanced military technology" as she put it, he might as well expect the bullet to fly itself at him if he somehow managed to dodge the initial firing. Knowing that against even a regular firearm, fighting with bare paws wasn't a good option, talking was all he could do.

"Look, just put the gun away, I don't want to fight you" he put his arms up in surrender. "I'm telling you, none of us do. But I get that words and anecdotes aren't going to convince you, fine. But, I know for a fact I had my phone on me when you dragged me down here. Take a look inside at the pictures, we don't live in the wild or whatever you might think. We're civilized, hell, the phone alone proves that!"

"I never said you lived in the wild. We know you live in cities, suburbs, burrows even for some of you lot, we have spies for that. However, they never came in any form of contact with you, our thinking of you still applies. Any trust placed in you will surely be taken advantage of, and will cause our deaths. That video and countless documentation of the aftermath of our fall proves that."

"That "proof" is twenty five thousand years old! Things change! Is nothing going to get through that thick head of yours?!" he yelled. "Heck, I'd probably have a better time convincing a brick wall than you."

"Personal jabs aren't going to earn you any favors here. Quite the opposite, in fact." She cocked the hammer, making Ryan mentally kick himself. He could have jumped her before she cocked it. "Now, turn around and get on your knees, this ends now" she narrowed her eyes at him.

"You can't be serious" a bullet whizzed past his head, "Alright, you're serious!" he turned around.

"I said, on your knees" she fired another shot at him, missing his leg by a hair.

"Hah, if I'm going to die, I'm going to do it standing. Might as well keep a little bit of my pride, right?" he laughed slightly. He heard her take a few steps toward him, poking the back of his head with the end of her pistol.

"No, pride is for those who earned it, not those who grew up from those who stole it. Now, get on your damn knees." She was clearly at a level between fuming and pissed at his obvious laughter in the face of death.

"Alright, they did it in the movies. Can't be that hard, right?" Ryan thought. "Make sure you don't hit the good looking side, I want my funeral picture to be the best it can" he said aloud. He felt the gun lift off for a split second, but then the sound of a shot went off, another bullet went past his head. The ringing in his ears hurt like hell. He got the message, and slowly started to kneel, still feeling the end of the barrel against his head. He finally got down to both knees, before the female spoke.

"For someone who makes such bad jokes in with a gun pointed at him, you really would think-" he spun around, causing her to fire at him, but only managed to piece his right ear. He yelped in pain, but kept his momentum, driving himself into her. In the next moment, he threw her down on the floor, jumping on top of her. He saw the look of desperation in her eyes, true fear. She really thought he was going to kill her outright. But as soon as his thought was finished, she replaced the fear with what almost looked like surrender, but with a bit of sass. "That I would have a plan up my sleeve? Yeah, you spoke a bit too late" he knocked the gun away from her far across the room. No way for her to run to it in time if she managed to get out of his grip.

"You kill me, and those guards will do things many times worse than originally planned." He pressed one of his claws to her neck, he figured a vulnerable spot. A few seconds later banging on the door was heard, obviously trying to break in.

"I'm going to die anyway, aren't I? Might as well take you with me then, right?"

"Then get it over with" okay, THAT surprised him. She was going to give up so easily? More banging was heard, but no visible progress on the door was found when he turned around. "Well?!" she was now staring daggers at him. Ryan sighed, and withdrew his claw and stood up. She remained on the ground, only lifting her head and giving him a confused look. "You… aren't going to kill me?"

"No, I wasn't planning on it. We "savage beasts" have a lot more value for life than you seem to. So no, I'm not going to kill you. That door doesn't seem to be wanting to give out anytime soon either." He glanced at the door again, the banging continued. After a few more slams, it stopped. He heard a series of small plops on the door. "That can't be good" he heard a small beep start. Explosives, they were planning on blowing out the door. The female spoke up, but for once it wasn't directed at him.

"Lieutenant, stop the breach." She stood up, and turned to look at Ryan. He raised an eyebrow at her before she continued "You had a choice to kill me, but you didn't. Consider this repayment for not slicing my neck open, but if I ever see you or any of your kind again, you will be shot on sight" she hit the emergency button again, the bars retracting. The door opened, with three males bursting in. Two escorted the female out, while the other tackled Ryan in the span of one second. He brought a knife out, ready to stab him. "Lieutenant! I said stop!" she shouted.

"He was going to kill you!" he didn't turn to her, still committing full focus to Ryan in case he tried anything. "We can't trust him either. He needs to be eliminated."

"He had a choice, and chose to spare me."

"He probably figured he would get a favor from you for doing so. Why can't you see that?"

"Do I get a say in any of this?" the lieutenant pressed the knife against his neck just a bit harder.

"Shut it, mongrel. The male spat.

"Lieutenant, last warning, let him up." She spoke. The lieutenant stayed there with the knife pressed against Ryan neck, but gave a small growl and threw the knife into the wall instead and stood up and turned towards her.

"What has gotten into you?! He's the enemy! The same thing responsible for our current situation! He'll kill us if he has a chance!"

"You might be right, he could have figured that not killing me could in turn force me to spare his own. However, he is our first contact in over twenty five thousand years. All our guides say they'll kill as many as possible before getting killed themselves, yet he decides not to kill me." She sighed, and turned to Ryan. "You say that your kind don't want to fight us, or even know of us. I can't take your word on either of those statements." She stopped to think. "But, you chose not to kill me, when in your mind it was probably justified to do so. For that, I'm otherwise forced to do the same to you" she signaled to the two guards to bring him up to his feet. "Well, Ryan? You said I should give you blind faith, so, in exchange for… not murdering me, I'll spare you. Also, never speak of our existence to anyone. If I catch wind that you did, I will have you tortured until you die. It will not be slow, either, it will be months before I allow you to die, am I understood?"

"Uh… Y-yeah, sure. J-Just…" he shook his head. "Just hold on a second, you're seriously just going to…. Let me go?"

"I can revert my decision at any time if you prefer that instead" she crossed her arms.

 _Rumble_. The lights spazzed, the ground shaking. "What in blazes-!" an explosion was heard soon after. An alarm started blaring. A voice over an intercom started talking.

"Alert, alert! Breach in sector two! Unknown intruders breaching sector two!" it repeated itself. The four humans turned towards Ryan. He held his arms up and spoke.

"I swear I have no idea what's going on, I don't think I really did for the most part of being down here, in fact." He said. Gunfire was heard a few halls down, commotion following it. The female pointed at one of her guards. "Get that mutt out of here, then report back to the barracks!" the guard nodded, and grabbed Ryan by the arm and ran. They didn't make it far, however, as Ryan heard zips fly past him and his escort. They dove into a small indented section of the hallway for cover. Ryan turned to look back, the female and the two males were gone. The ground started to shake again, another explosion was heard soon after. Footsteps from where the gunfire came from was heard, and Ryan's escort drew a pistol from his holster. He peeked around before instantly ducking back behind the wall again, more bullets flew past a nanosecond later.

"Fucking Polts" Ryan heard him say. Curious, Ryan took a peek over, but then scrambling behind the wall again as more bullets wizzed past.

"Question" Ryan said. His escort looked at him. "Why are those humans firing at you, who are _also_ human? I thought you guys were trying to kill us? Not each other?" Ryan pointed in their direction, then at his escort.

"Different civilization." Was all he said. "We can't stay here, follow me." He dove from his hiding spot, shooting blindly in the direction of the opposition to force them to take cover. They ran to the opposite side of the hall, going through a door into a small room.

"Great, instead of being in a hallway with no cover, we're in a confined space for them to just take their time." Ryan looked around, no other doors in sight.

"You must not be very perceptive" he pointed to a ventilation grate, "In you go"

"The thing is bolted to the wall, and I don't see-" he didn't get to finish the sentence, his escort shot the bolts off, the grate falling to the ground with a loud clang. "Well, that solves that problem" the door started to get pounded on, they were almost out of time. Ryan climbed in, his escort following suit. The male propped up the grate as best he could in a few seconds to buy some time, but it wouldn't take long for the intruders to realize what they'd done. They started crawling through the ventilation shaft, when the male spoke up

"We'll take two left turns, then one right. There will be another grate, so let me through first" he said. A small explosion could be heard from the room they were in, multiple footsteps following. Ryan couldn't understand what they were saying, but it sounded confused if he had to guess. They reached their destination, and his escort shot out four more bolts, the grate fell with another loud clang, and hopped out. Ryan followed shortly after, though when he looked up, he could say he didn't like the fact that there were at least twenty assault rifles pointed at him.

"Calm down, he's with me" he heard his escort say through the crowd of people. Ryan could see the hesitation as they slowly lowered their arms, but they couldn't disobey their apparent commander. They kept a close eye on him as he walked past, and Ryan caught up with the closest thing he could call an ally.

"So… I'm guessing I'm not going home any time soon?" Ryan chimed. His escort looked at him, giving an eye roll, and turned back to walk to where he originally was. Ryan pushed through the small crowd, and saw his "favorite" captor talking with one of her men. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, and stopped talking to whoever it was she was talking to. She looked to his escort, "Why isn't he out of here? In fact, why did you even bring him here?" she walked up to him, Ryan could almost say it looked cute that she had to almost turn her head 90 degrees to look at his face.

"He won't try anything with those guns pointed at him, not unless he's stupid enough to try." He looked at Ryan, then back at her, "Besides, once we open the bay doors and fly out of here, he can walk back."

"That all depends if we can even get to the hangar. They brought an entire platoon here. This is just a temporary outpost with limited defenses, we don't have the capability to fight them off. Our communications are all cut off, and they took control of the command center almost instantly. It's only a matter of time before they figure out where we are."

"So, is this going to be our last stand, then?" He asked.

"Please, I've gotten us out of worse" she turned to the blockaded doors at the other end of the barracks. "We just need to divert them far away from the hangar, to the other side of the facility. It would take them at least five minutes to run all the way back to the hangars with all the stairs and corridors they'll have to go through."

"They're not stupid, they'll leave large groups throughout the place to keep watch." He stopped, probably thinking of their best strategy in his mind "There's about one thousand of them, and twenty five of us. What could we possibly do with those odds stacked against us?"

"We have an animal" she turned to Ryan, as did half of the group of humans. Ryan pointed to himself, then shoved his arms out in front of himself, shaking his paws. "Woah, woah. Look, I'm not a military type of guy. I mean, yeah, I was a cop for a few years, but I don't think-"

"I'll take the liberty of absolving you of that duty, all you have to do is listen. You wanted to earn my trust? This is how you'll do it." Footsteps could be heard on the floor below, "Not like you have much a choice in the matter, anyway"

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Well, I revised a good portion of this chapter, rewrote a good tenth of it when reading it and it just not making sense in my head. But all in all, I think this one turned out well. Hope I'm at least improving, at the least. Also, now that I think of it, some of you may be confused at how I introduce characters. By that, I mean not describing them at the moment they are introduced, IE: "X" appeared, having blah blah blah eyes, and yadda yadda yadda fur. Every time I read that, I get sent a bit off, if that makes any sense. So for further reference, I'll subtly tell the features of the characters. If you paid attention, I did this in the first chapter, so expect more of that, basically.

Anywho, until next time, later.


	4. Chapter 4

Hello again, Just wanted to say that I'll be busy in the coming weekend (2/9/17), so don't expect an update for a week or so. Also, writing this does actually take up a chunk of my time, so it's amazing I've been able to get three chapters out in the span of a week. I get about three hours of free time before I've to go to sleep to wake up for work. So you can see the devotion(?) I've put into this so far. Now, petty first world problems aside, back to the story.

Edit: Thanks Dr. Wolf, don't get too ahead of yourself, though. Like I (think) I said, I already have the story planned out to the end. Obviously, I'll have to add things here and there, as the "plan" if you could call it that, is really just like a connect-the-dot game (Figure out a to b, find out how and or why a got to b. Rinse and repeat). Why do I already have the story planned to the end? This YouTube video explains it better than I could- /watch?v=AkMh_lEjKxw – The uploader pinned comment at the very top is what I'm talking about as well.

TL; DR If I don't know how it all ends, it will crash and burn. And will be a lot less enjoyable getting there, for you and me.

Alright, enough text walls of nonsense, to the actual thing you came here for~

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Ryan looked at the female, "Well, yeah. Trust would be a good start. But, uh… Did you forget the part where there's a thousand of them out there?" He pointed to the doors. "I might have good self-esteem, but that won't stop bullets from killing me" he turned back to her. She slapped her hand on her face.

"No, you moron, you're not going to fight a thousand well-trained, well-armed, military personnel." She had that annoying monotone voice again. "You are going to work your way to the command center via grates, like you used to get here. They all connect throughout this entire place. Most of their men are probably scrounging around, working bottom to top to weed us out. They're only a floor below us, so you've only ten minutes, at the most."

"They're going to have said better-than-me-in-every-way-possible guys there too!" he yelled, then immediately covered his mouth. Shouting probably isn't the best thing to do in this situation. He started to go into thought for a few seconds, but saw something fly at him. He instinctively shot his arms to up catch it, lowering his paws to show a small pistol.

"No backup magazine, make them count." She deadpanned. One of her men gave her a map, and she traced where they were to the command center. "The vents connect to each room, so just take this with you and you won't have any trouble. Since you have fur and padded… feet and hands, you won't make much noise crawling. Once you get there, get rid of anyone guarding the place. I doubt they have many in there, mostly to watch any cameras that are still up to catch us. After that, on the far left side of the control panel, there will be eight large red buttons, labeled access one through eight. Hit ONLY, and I mean ONLY number six. That opens the one farthest from the hangar. We'll have to wait a few minutes for the enemy to… mostly go to the door entrance, a few staying behind. You have that much time to make it back here." Ryan nodded, making his way to the grate. She spoke up again, "Don't mess this up, I don't need to explain what will happen if you do."

"Yes mother" he smirked. He jumped up to the vent, grunting as he entered. He took the map out of the front of his shirt, opening it. Two left turns, five right, then three left… All in most likely five minutes, not ten. "Better get moving…" he tried to keep silent as he crawled, but the ventilation sheet metal still made a slight noise every time he shifted his weight, all he could hope for was that they couldn't hear it.

"This is…" he stopped to think, "third right turn, halfway there." He started to make his turn in the fork, but stopped dead in his tracks when he heard someone talking. It was in a language he had never heard, so eavesdropping was out of the question. The real problem was that if he could hear them, could they hear _him_? He thought for a bit, there was no time to turn back, and he couldn't wait any longer lest he run out of time. He decided to try his luck once again. He started to crawl, and the men below kept talking. He must have passed over a room, because it faded out within a few seconds. Finally, after an eternity, at least it felt like one, he made it to the command center. He peered past the grate, only three men guarding the room. He looked to the door, and saw a shadow behind it.

"Crap…" to shoot the grate bolts, he had to work his pistol and paw through the grate vents. But he had to get rid of the three guards. But that would alert the one outside, no doubt spelling disaster for his health. "Come on… think!" he whispered a bit loudly, too loudly, in fact. One of the men must have heard him, and turned to the grate. Ryan scooted himself back into the shadows to conceal himself. The guard took out a pistol, garnering the attention of the other two. Alright, this is bad. Going off the biological clock in his head, he literally had about a minute left to open that door. Half a minute passed by, before the guard said something, probably along the lines of "I'm probably just hearing things" and the three turned back to their posts. Ryan tried to think of a solution, he couldn't break the grate, otherwise he would be shot before he even got the second bolt. He couldn't shoot the guards, otherwise the one by the door would know where he was, ending in his death again.

"All to press a stupid button…" a light popped in his head. Would _shooting_ the button work? I mean, the bullet would kind of press it, before drilling into the circuitry and destroying the panel. He peeked into the room, "No time to guess" he thought. He grabbed the pistol tucked into his pants, taking aim at the buttons. "Six… Six… gah, they're too far away to read." He was getting frantic. "Okay, if I were to number these… top left would be one, so…" he took aim and fired. A siren shot out of the speakers, a door was opening, he just hoped it was the right one. He backpedaled as fast as he could before they could figure out where the shot came from. He didn't care for making noise, as the constant beeping drowned out any noise he made. He was almost at the grate he had come from, and only heard faint footsteps. If he didn't hurry, he would lose the way they went. Scenting wouldn't help, the humans scent was everywhere in the place. He darted out of the vent, popping up like a spring and looking around. No one in sight. He made a mad dash to the open door, but was grabbed by the collar.

"Woah, woah, take it easy the-!" he stopped talking when he saw who had grabbed him. "You know, I would think you would be the _last_ human that would stay behind for me" a huff was heard instantly after.

"I wasn't sticking around for you, there are others of ours that may be stuck in this place. Unfortunately, only you came up." She grabbed his arm and started running.

"What, not even a thank you for getting the button right?"

"That would be an insult to those two words"

"It's more of an insult not to say them!" they argued as they made their way down the halls. Gunfire was heard, and they passed by bodies of fallen soldiers, but they all looked like the ones trying to kill him. He didn't like the sight of the dead humans at all. It was one of the small reasons he quit the force, so he didn't have to be one of those who put a family member of a mammal in that situation. They finally met up with their group, they looked like they had just gotten done shooting, and started to run. They turned a corridor, and giant letter at the end of it spelt "Hangar A". They entered, the doors slamming shut behind them. Ryan was amazed by the actual aircraft in this place. There looked to be two fighter aircrafts, missiles hanging off of the wings with two guns protruding through the nose. He saw two seats on it, though he couldn't figure out why there needed to be two seats for the jets. He saw a different one, looking like a smaller version of one you'd get on at an actual airport, probably a good guess. They were already starting the engines to get out of there as fast as possible. His ears perked when he heard the female start a talk with one of her men.

"Good to see you madam, no one else came?" One of the men asked, making Ryan turn back. The female looked at Ryan, "No, just this" pointing at him.

"I have a name, you know. You know it too, in fact" His eye twitched at her animosity towards him.

"Must have slipped my mind" she shrugged. That was the tipping point for him, he clenched his paws, slamming his foot into the ground.

"Alright, that's it!" he finally snapped at her. Her eyes got a bit wide, and the other humans actually took a step back in shock at his outburst. "I get it, you hate me. In fact, I bet you wish I died on that little mission you sent me on. Fine, but I am putting my foot down! I've been nothing if not cooperative with you, tried being nice, tried explaining, and tried literally _everything_ to get through to you! What do I get in return? The threat of being turned into some high schoolers science project and being thrown into a ditch afterward! I get no thanks for saving your sorry asses, something that BARELY constitutes as a sorry after _sparing your life_ when you tried to kill me, twice!" he started to stomp towards her, but was blocked by her men, the rest raising their rifles at him. At this point, he could probably count on them leaving him there or using him to stall the others once they figured out that they didn't take the exit. He could hear himself breathing heavily, a slight strain in his throat started to form. He could tell the stress of being a captive for two days on top of all of this finally got to him.

"Screw it, I don't even care anymore. You want to shoot me? Go ahead, it'll just prove a point that you're just a bunch of bigoted, paranoid idiots that are too scared to face reality. It'd be a lot less painful than dealing with those guys too, so we'll both get a happy ending." He started to walk towards the door he came in. He heard another siren start blaring, and a large swoosh of air was felt at his back. He turned to see sunlight pouring into the place. He could just walk out of the place, but the other humans may have others outside, and there's no way he could outrun them once they came pouring into the hangar. He figured he had to try to leave, as this was probably his only chance at escape, he'll deal with the whole humans taking over the world issue once he found actual civilization. He would have to survive to warn anymammal of that, anyway. He saw the propelled one shoot out like a rocket, and noticed there seemed to be some sort of mechanism that made that possible. Some sort of smoke, or maybe steam was pouring from slits in the floor. The two seater jets were still sitting on the ground. One had both seats filled, the other was empty, however.

"Tch" he lost interest quickly, mostly due to the anger he still had. Ryan started to walk to the open doors to make a trek back to any village that could give him a boat. He noticed he was gritting his teeth, and stopped himself. His ears slightly raised, almost thinking he heard a voice behind him, but didn't care enough to turn around and listen. It came again, louder.

"I said stop!" Of course, the female.

"Don't care, fuck off" he almost surprised himself, he didn't usually swear. He couldn't bring himself to care about it though, and kept walking to the open doors. He felt what he now knew was what they called a hand on his shoulder, which he abruptly tightly grabbed and threw off. He heard a slight wince, something along the lines of "damn hand hurts now". He started to walk again, when she shouted.

"God damnit, do you want to get out of here or not?!" Ryan finally turned around.

"I'm surprised you of anyone would even ask that. What, do you have some other impossible mission to send me on? Oh, better one, you need my leg to find a cure to all our illness? Hold on, I swear I saw a saw around here somewhere" he mocked looking around.

"Oh for the love of-! GET IN THE DAMN JET!" she stomped the ground, hands balled up.

"Oh no, I am not going ANYWHERE with you. I'll take my chances with the death squad over you." Pointing at her. He turned his head when the sound footsteps, more like thunder, started accumulating. They had at most a minute before the others arrived. He saw the female tug her hair a bit in frustration in the corner of his eye. Her face was almost as red as her hair.

"Rrraaah! Fine, don't say I didn't try!" she started to make her way back to the jet. The sound of running was getting louder, Ryan knew he would die if he didn't go with her now, but would he end up in the same place as he was? Death by a few bullets sounded better in that case. But what if she was actually going to follow up on her promise to actually let him go? She might hate his just existing, but she seemed… honest, if you could put it that way.

"Gah! Fine!" He ran to catch up with her, barely managing to reach her before she jumped up to the seat. The sound of the door getting slammed was heard. He saw the other jet shoot out, probably given permission by her.

"Finally got some sense into that small brain of yours?"

"I swear I will take back my not slicing your neck if you keep that up" she didn't speak again, either out of fear he actually would do that, or just tired of arguing. He didn't care which one, just as long as the remarks stopped.

He finally worked his way into the seat, the canopy lowering automatically. He heard the engine start powering up as soon as both were closed. He noticed one important detail, he had no idea how to put on the seatbelts, and the helmet obviously wasn't meant to be worn by him.

"Uh, okay. Just a seatbelt, can't be to hAAAAR-" he was pushed back into his seat as the jet took off. His blood felt like it was pushed into the skin of his back, coupled with barely being able to breathe, made for a bad first supersonic take-off. After a few seconds the forces slowed, and he could pull himself off the seat. He could hear her voice coming through the headset tucked between his legs, and picked it up.

"You know, if you're going to have somemammal like me on this thing, make sure you have a helmet that fits me. A warning would be nice too, I almost suffocated"

"Shut up and listen. My wingman is already ten miles ahead of us with the transport plane. I'm going to stay back here to delay any of them. Knowing them they brought anti air tanks moving in. As for your straps… I'll walk you through putting the straps on. You'll have to hold the air mask on, though."

"Good enough for me" Ryan said. After a few minutes of tugging, and some choice words, he finally managed to work the belts around him. He had to hold the air mask on his muzzle with one paw, though he managed to somewhat fit the helmet on his head. He had to tilt it back a bit, and his ears were extremely crushed, but a helmet is a helmet. He looked out to his side, seeing they were flying an a large circle. A few minutes passed, and he finally calmed down. A thought struck his mind "So, why did you bother coming back for me?" the thought of that moment just a bit ago still made him a bit livid, but her words compared to her actions just didn't make sense to him now that he thought about it.

"Thank you" was all that came from the ear piece. Ryan was a bit shocked, did she really just say that? He talked into the microphone. "While it's great that you finally said that, that doesn't answer the question."

"Doesn't it?" she replied. A sigh came a few seconds later, it sounded like she was going to say something else, but decided not to. Ryan continued to look out the window, he had never been this high in the air before, the clouds were literally only a few feet above his head. He sat back in his chair, surprisingly comfortable. He let out a breath of relief, maybe he could finally relax now.

 _Beep. Beep. Beep._ A light came on the array of instruments, accompanied with an audible beeping. He looked at the flashing button, labeled only "WRNLCK", another started to flash, "WRNMSL" The frequency of the beeping grew quicker, turning into a flatline. After a few seconds it turned a few pitches higher, beeping insanely fast.

"That's definitely not gouAA-!" the aircraft took a sharp left, turning towards the ground. He felt the speed of the jet increase dramatically, with him barely keeping his arm in place to keep the air mask on. A streak flew past his window, exploding a second later. The jet rocked, making him almost drop his mask.

"Missile, had to evade." Was all she said. Ryan looked down in the direction the missile had come from, but he was too high up too see anything but dense jungle. He heard the dreaded beeping come on again, then he saw a puff of smoke from several locations on the ground. Ryan heard his earpiece chime, "See those switches on the top right of your panel?"

"There's a LOT of switches here!" he looked around, half of the freaking thing was just switches, some buttons, and what looked like a radar on it. The female spoke again, "There's a label, says CM on top of them, labeled one to four. See them?" He looked, spotting the switches. "Yeah?" he responded. "When I tell you, flip one of them, doesn't matter which one, just don't flip more than one at a time, and don't flip the same one again."

Ryan wondered what they were, he didn't know what CM meant. All he could figure, given the situation, was that they could be used to somehow either block the missiles, or make them miss. His earpiece sounded off, "Now!" Ryan flipped one of them, the jet jerked a bit to the left, and he saw a red reflection in the glass of his cockpit canopy. Flares, they were flares, he now knew. The missiles stopped going towards them, finding the flares a better target to hit, exploding when they got near them. Hopefully they didn't bring many more missiles, only three get out of jail free cards left. He saw another barrage of puffs from below, the warning of incoming missiles blaring again. "Get ready!" he heard. Ryan put his paw over one of the switches in anticipation, flipping one of them when he got the signal. The missiles again lost track of them.

"Look, as fun as evading something that would make me into a barbeque is, can we get out of here?" He asked after a few seconds.

"Not until we run out of flares or I get the message that the transport is in clear skies." She responded. Another barrage was launched, another switch flipped, more explosions. Ryan quickly grew tired of this charade, he didn't want to go from one life or death scenario to another one. He put a digit of his paw on the last switch, figuring they'd fire again. He looked at his panel for a second, a blip appeared on the screen. Two, three, five, ten, twenty, stopping at somewhere around thirty or so.

"Yep, we're done" was all he said. The female responded, "What? What's going on?" Ryan talked back, "This screen is a radar, right?" she responded with a yes, "There's like, a lot of blips on the thing. Don't you have one in there?" she said no, saying his role in the jet was to inform the pilot of incoming threats, so that the pilot could focus on the immediate dangers and prepare for what was coming next. "Well, there's enough blips popping up here to play whack-a-mole, so can we just leave now?" the jet jerked upwards, turning to the right and out of the circle they were going in. "I'll take that as a yes, finally we agree on something"

"I'm not fleeing from them" she stated. "I'm luring them back to another outpost, about one hundred miles from where we are. I've already alerted them, so just sit back and… do whatever you things do when you're not busy… doing whatever."

"Amazing choice of words, really, couldn't have thought of anything better myself"

"You know I can eject your seat from in here, right?"

"Yeah, and when the beeping starts you'll have to jump with me" he heard a groan from her.

"Why did I come back for you…" he chuckled a bit, liking this sort of argument much better than the ones before. He felt the jet accelerate again, watching the radar in case more things popped up. Nothing came up, and seeing how fast they seemed to be going, they'd get to their destination fairly quickly. He decided to pass the time, he should try to figure out what he could about these so-called humans.

"So… Just want to clear some things up here. Are you just the leader of that little posy back there, or… you know, the leader leader"

"The latter statement" she said. "Why do you want to know?"

"So… why would you think it's a good idea to go to a quote-unquote temporary outpost, with only around twenty five people?" he asked. "I mean, being the leader and all, you'd think you'd be a bit higher on the don't-let-this-mammal-get-killed list" he scratched his chin, just something to help him think.

"I visit all the outposts at least once a year, we don't have a ton of them. Besides, once I heard we finally caught one of you b-…" she stopped herself. "Animals… I had to see you for myself. I wanted proof, is that good enough?"

"I would ask proof of what, but that's a bit obvious. Also, work on that speech stutter, that's not good to have when being some supreme dictator. By the way, where'd the other two planes go?" he said.

"Different location" was all she said.

"Mmm, secretive. Let me guess, you're going to test them for my virus? Better watch out, I can control that remotely"

"Shut up, we're almost there."

"Seeing how you were probably going to turn me into a potato, I think I have a right to know" he waited for a response, talking again when he didn't get one. "Look, the silent games aren't going to help either of us, just tell me."

"No, for all intents and purposes, I still can't-" she stopped for a second, sighing. "I _mostly_ can't trust you. And don't ask me to thank you again, it was painful enough to say that already" there was that dreaded monotone voice again.

"Oh, you said that? Well…" he put his paws up in the air in quotation markings, "Must have slipped my mind" He knew from his position in front of her that she definitely saw his parody of her. Silence filled the cabins, both knew they would get into a heated argument if they kept going down that path again. Ryan could practically feel the glare she was giving him at his mockery, deciding not to pry any further. Half a minute later, a different voice in his headset came on.

"Warwolf 1-1, you're cleared for opening two, proceed when ready"

"Proceeding, by the way, I'm carrying some… cargo, tell the landing crew to not be alarmed by something in my other cockpit" she said.

"…Roger. If I may ask, what is said cargo?" his voice sounded a bit confused.

"Something that makes no sense to me whatsoever" was all she said.

"Uhm… okay, right. Opening two, whenever you're ready." He sounded suspicious at this point, but let the door open anyway. Ryan saw the ground open up slightly below them. The jet decreased its speed, lowering its altitude. He heard a pop in the back, "What was that?" he asked.

"Killed the engine, it's on purpose, don't worry" the jet buckled a bit as the speed decreased further, to where the ground stopped being a blur. He could clearly see the landing platform, but it seemed too small for them to land on, even at the speed they were going.

"Hey, don't you think we're going a bit fast?" he asked. The jet descended further, there's no way they'd be able to stop on the platform at that speed. He grabbed the edges of his seat to secure himself from the small amount of shaking. "Hey!" he yelled.

"Do you really think I can't pilot this thing after that little incident back there?" She accused. "Whatever. Just, when we get down there… let me do all the talking. I don't like bringing you here at all, let alone what everyone else will say. Despite what you've done, you're still an enemy. Oh, hold onto something." The jets nose lifted up to where all he could see was sky, then leveled out. He heard an engine start up, but it was coming from below him this time. He looked out from his window. The ground wasn't moving anymore.

"Uh… We're floating? This isn't a helicopter…" he continued to look out the window, they started to slowly go towards the ground, but didn't move in any direction.

"Like I said, better tech than yours. And remember, no talking, don't look at anyone… just, don't let anyone know you exist until I let you come out. Hide the best you can until then"

"Right, I'll just pop into this convenient hole in the jet that just happens to be my perfect size. I'm not exactly small, you know" the jet bounced up and down, coming to a halt. He saw the ground start to close, and the pad began to descend. "So… just to get this out of the way, no experiments, right?" No response, "Right?" he asked again, with no response. He let out a nervous laugh, tapping on his seats armrest. He felt the pad stop moving, seeing a large amount of workers make their way to the jet. The canopy behind him opened, and he saw her get out, jumping to the ground. He ducked into his seat, trying to make himself as small as possible. "Right, because they totally won't notice half my head sticking above the glass level. Come on, She said she'd let me go. Then again…" recent events didn't bode well for his trust in her, all he could do was wait, though. There's no way out of the underground area except that moving pad, and he wouldn't get another chance to escape if this was an actual permanent settlement anyway. He heard a metal tink, and some footsteps a moment after, must be a ladder. "Well, this is it." He said aloud. The canopy opened, and he felt his helmet get knocked on.

"Hey, time to wake up" he heard her say. Ryan looked up at her, letting out a huff "Like I could sleep after that, a stretch would do me wonders, though"

"Stretch later, you've got to get going. If you've forgotten, we have a lot of polts coming at us." She pointed up. "So come on, we don't have any time for your shenanigans. We'll wait out this battle, and send you back when it's over" she stepped down from the ladder, Ryan sitting up a second later. He looked out to the open area, seeing just about every human glaring at him. "I said hurry up! Did your ears get blown out by the missiles or something?" he heard her yell. He darted his eyes to her, groaning as he worked the seatbelt off and stepped down the ladder. As soon as he touched the ground she began talking again.

"Listen closely, because I'm only going to say this once." She lifted a single finger, pointing at him, "I don't like you, and I have every right to hate you. You animals nearly annihilated our species, and then just forgot about us. From our records, you are just savage beasts that would kill us given the chance. I've tried to have you killed twice, and sent you on a mission that I assumed would kill you as well." Ryan was confused, did she think he had short term memory loss? "Despite that…" she lowered her finger, crossing her arms instead and taking a deep breath "Despite that, you didn't behave like we thought you would. You kept saying again and again that you didn't want to hurt us. You might be telling the truth, or it could be that you've always had a gun pointed at you." Her face softened a bit, "Whatever the case may be, except for the attempted murder of me, you never tried anything violent." She paused for a bit, which only confused Ryan more.

"…Is there a point to this? I was there, remember?" he raised an eyebrow. He was about to speak again, but she raised a hand telling him to stop.

"What I'm _trying_ to say is that you _might_ be telling the truth. However, we cannot and will not risk an if scenario like I said before." Her stern face returned, staring at him again. "I'm going to keep my promise and send you back. _But_!" she stressed that word quite a bit, "You are not under any circumstances to speak about us in any way, shape, form, or anything. So help me if you break this promise I will attack you and your entire world until you are dust. Believe me, we are capable of that, several times over"

"Then why haven't you attacked us yet?" he bluntly stated.

"Because we want to have a planet to return to, those weapons are a last resort. We may not care for your kind, but we care for the planet." She pointed at him, then the ground. Ryan sighed, she seemed like she was finally letting her walls down, but it now seems he was wrong. He noticed several jets move onto the platform, probably meant the other jets are almost here. He and the female walked off the platform, onto stable ground. She started to walk away, but Ryan wasn't finished with their conversation yet.

"Hold up" he said. She turned around, and Ryan could feel the glares return once more. "Look, I know I won't convince you to go above ground, blah blah blah. But can you _at least_ admit that your opinion of us has changed?" it was his turn to cross his arms. She gave him a blank stare, blinking once. She didn't say anything, and turned around. "Hello? A response would be nice!" he yelled.

"You could just be a spy" she said. Ryan's eye twitched, and his mouth started to hang open a bit. He slapped his paws on his face, screaming into them.

"That's it, I tried. You want to be paranoid, everything's a conspiracy! Yep, I'm a spy alright! You figured me out! I _let_ myself get captured, I could have broken out of that metal chair in a second, I just _enjoy_ sleeping on tiled ground! I _let_ myself be belittled by you because you still believe in some twenty five year old **bullshit** because I just can't get enough of it! By the way, we have an army marching over here, we can phase through the ceiling and shoot laser beams out of our eyes! Give this lady a trophy, she figured it all out!" he yelled out for everyone around to hear while clapping. "Wait, no. You didn't figure it all out. In fact, you're at square negative one! But you know what, I'm not even going to try anymore. That head of yours and everyone else here is about as thick as a boulder. So go on, keep living in fear of us, I'm obviously just a big monster out to get you, can't you tell?" he ranted.

" _That's enough_!" she yelled back. The ground crew continued to stare at them, appearing to gossip amongst themselves. Soon, the lift started up, grabbing the attention of Ryan, as he saw the fighter jets starting their vertical thrusters. He heard her start talking again. "You are the first contact that we have EVER had. You think I'm going to take ONE animals word that all the others would be just peachy about us revealing ourselves?!"

"And I told you to go up there and take a look for yourselves! You keep living in this fantasy world where everything is out to get you! I keep telling you this, but like I said, your head is as thick as a boulder! What if I'm the ONLY contact you ever get? Are you just going to keep living like this, then? Doesn't at least one of you want to go up and see?!"

"I told you, we have spies up there. They keep their distance, never seen, never heard. We will not risk anything!" she argued back. Ryan felt a headache start to form, nothing was ever going to get to any of them. There's no point in continuing trying to convince them.

"You know what? Fine. Keep living down here. I'm done with you, I've tried to help, but it will never get through to you. So just send me back up, I won't say a word." He said. She acted as if she was about to say something, probably figured he was going to continue to argue.

"Well? Aren't you going to show me out? Wouldn't want some _beast_ aimlessly walking around the place. Might hurt someone, right? Your little video said so, and that could _never_ _ever_ change." He saw her grit her teeth. Seeing that, he backed off with talking, both gave each other a look of anger.

"You'll never understand." Was all she said.

"Oh no, quite the opposite. But like I said, I'm done with you. You're hopeless, so just point me to the exit, I want to leave this place as soon as I can. I'll swim across the ocean if I have to."

"No, if those gets get through our anti air defenses and jets, they'll aim for you. And believe me, you won't walk away from a bullet the size of your index finger times two." She started to walk.

"No, I'm done being near you. You act like you're finally opening up, coming to your senses, but then just close back up."

"Would you just shut up already? In case you haven't noticed, there is a _battle_ going on up there. You won't last long alone." She said. Ryan was about to say something else, but didn't. He already made up his mind to leave, no matter what, right now. Once out of here, he would just try to convince himself this was all a bad dream. Everything would be normal, he would go to sleep and wake up in a nice bed. No crazy underground humans, no looming threat of destruction. Ryan started to walk to an open door, but she stepped in front of him, arms crossed.

"Get out of my-" he was interrupted, a worker ran up to the female. He looked frantic, full of panic.

"Madam, we've just received word that several bunker busters have been launched. We need to go into shelter incase our defenses can't shoot them down."

"How long until impact?" she asked.

"Ten minutes. There's enough to break through the entrance cover."

"…Alright, send all non-vital staff deeper into the complex." She told him.

"And what about me leaving?" Ryan said. She looked at him, in thought for a good ten seconds.

"Like I said, you'll have to come with-" she was cut off.

"Nope, don't care. Just point me to the door, I'll live through the missiles and jets." He waved her off.

"No, you'll _die_ if you go up there right now!" She retorted.

"And why would you care? You've made it pretty damn clear you already want all of us dead anyway. So me going up there should be a good thing, right? So point me to the door, now." He said. The female looked like she was trying to think of something to say, but couldn't find any words. Ryan could swear she was having some internal conflict, but he wanted to leave. Get away from all of this, go back home. Given enough luck, the humans would stay underground, and never bother him or any other mammal. He stared at her for a good ten seconds, waiting for her to say anything.

"Screw it, I'll find my way out. If I catch any of you following me, you'll regret it. Like I said, I've had enough of you" he said walking to one of the openings. The female didn't turn around, he didn't care to think of why, only thankful he didn't have to deal with any humans. With the incoming rockets, the guards and non-vital personnel were probably in some sort of panic room. He only saw three humans left on the platform, and passing none as he ran through the narrow corridors. It must've been a good three minutes of running, and even though the signs were written in English, he didn't know what led to what. Stopping for a second to catch his breath, he looked up at the sign in front of him.

"You're... kidding… me." He panted, "One giant circle…" he was back at the platform. The female and three humans had left already, most likely already in the panic room. "Let's see, ten minutes… three running, a good four arguing…. Leaves three to find the way out" he looked at a large switch on the wall, labeled simply open at the top, close at the bottom. Only problem was that there was no way it lifted fast enough to get him above ground. That, and the rockets were headed for said lift, so he would be right in the crosshairs. He ran back the way he came, taking it a bit slower to not miss any hidden passageways.

"Come on already! Why isn't there a map in this place?" he shouted aloud. He turned a hallway, but was rocked off his balance. The entire placed felt like it was shaking, "Wait, did those rockets already hit?" the ground shook again, and as much as he tried, he failed to keep his footing. The last thing he remembered was his head aiming for a metal pipe running across the wall, then a large pressure on his chest.

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"It's been three days, why haven't they sent anyone down to look for him yet?" a fox sulked. "He said he would get a team, or at least something…"

"Violet, sulking isn't going to miraculously bring him back. Just be like Fang over there, he's on what, his fourth shot of rum? It isn't even midnight and he's going to start a party" he laughed, but quickly went to a serious tone. "Poor taste in humor aside, he's really taken it hard. Seems you have too"

"You didn't know him that well, Romen. He's not one to just go off into some random place. He would've at least told me about it"

"Might've figured you were leaving anyway, wanted to bring a souvenir back"

"Yeah…" she buried her head in her arms.

"Hey, cheer up. I might not know much about the guy, but don't give up on him" he paused, "Not until next week, you can give up then" he smirked. Violet shot up, giving him a punch to the shoulder.

"Not funny, at all. If you weren't a lion twice my size, I'd throw you across the bar" she leaned her head on one of her propped up arms. She looked down at the bar table, a shot of tequila in front of her, but it sat there for over an hour now. She heard a buzz in her purse, a call from her boss no doubt.

"Dark humor is the best humor. Helps to deal with stuff like this" Romen said. He looked back at Violet, who had her phone to her ear. "Who's that?" he asked.

"Shh" with a finger to her mouth to emphasize. "They what? When? They found him? Really?!" her smile couldn't have gotten any bigger, "That's great! Huh? His… backpack?" and instantly turned into a frown. She was silent for the rest of the time, ending the call after a few more minutes, letting the phone nearly drop from her paw. She caught it just in time, and put it back in her purse, zipping it slowly. Sitting in silence, staring at the table, a blank stare plastered on her face. Romen watched her, knowing what she had just heard, and what was about to come. Loud erratic thumps came up behind them.

"Ey guys! Check out the-" his mouth was instantly covered by Romens giant paw. Fang looked like he was about to protest, but saw Violet. He pulled away from the suffocating grip, a look on his face that he got the message "Oh… I'll uh. There's a thing over here, yeh" he pointed in a random direction, and walked away. The two sat there for what seemed like eternity.

"Look, Violet. You should go home, venting it at a bar is the worst choice you can make. Trust me on that" Romen broke the silence, he only got a slow nod from her. She got up from her seat, Romen following soon after. They stepped out of the bar, and walked to their cars.

"You sure you can drive, Romen?" Violet broke her own silence.

"Only had a few light ones, not even buzzed." He leaned against his car. "Look, I might've not known Ryan that well, but I know you. I've seen how you react when you lose someone. If you need anything, just give me a shout" he got off his car, seeing a slow nod from her. She was barely keeping it in, and would probably break down as soon as she got in her car. Befriending her since grade school, he saw how she acted when her mother died. Seeing her like this, he must've meant just as much to her. Sighing, he opened his door and got inside. As he drove away, he saw her face going the opposite direction in his mirror.

"This is going to be a long week…"

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	5. Chapter 5

Hello again. So, my plans for just one weekend off kind of went FUBAR when my brother asked me to house sit for three weeks, then I just had no motivation to write for this week afterwards. Also, since my laptop doesn't have M. Word on it, and I hate Word-pad, I had to stop writing the story for this chapter. HOWEVER, I did start chapter six on my galaxy S8+. Once I transfer that to my PC, or just finish it on my phone, it'll be uploaded, maybe, depends on my laziness or motivation.

Anyway, till then.

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Ringing, a thumping on his forehead, blurred vision, and a lot more pain than he would like to be in. This was not the way Ryan wanted to wake up after trying to escape. Like last time, the ringing subsided, vision going back to normal. A steady beep was coming from his left, causing him to turn his head. A heart monitor? He went to move his right arm, but felt a tug with a sting of pain causing him to wince. Raising the offended arm revealed a tube with clear liquid slowly flowing through it. Looking around the room a bit more, it became clear where he was.

"A hospital? Wait, did I…?" _Snore_. He snapped his head in the other direction, instantly regretting the extreme stinging it caused in his neck. "No, It wasn't a dream" he quietly complained. That same damn female was sleeping on a chair next to his bed, arms crossed and head lazily leaned to one side.

"You'd think they'd keep her as far away from me, all things considered…" _Thump_ , a large pain surged through his forehead again, causing him to breathe in quickly as a reflex. Moving his left paw to start rubbing his head, his vision blurred, and went back to normal. "A concussion, probably…"

"An aspirin would be great right about now…" he groaned as he forced himself to sit up. The bed creaked loudly, causing the female to wake up, much to his dismay. "Go back to sleep, I don't feel like dealing with you" he waved her off without looking, eyes narrowing as he stared down at nothing in particular. He heard her stretch, giving a light yawn.

"…What? And miss the part where you wither in pain as I get to say I told you so? Fat chance…" she sat up from her slumped position, rubbing an eye that had collected some gound. "You're welcome, by the way" this caused Ryan to turn his head towards her.

"For what?" he wasn't going to play any of her games, "cut to the chase, what happened?"

"You acted like an idiot and didn't come with me to the bunker. You ran through the halls like a madman, then fell and hit your head. You're lucky you were in the crossroads to the bunker, otherwise I wouldn't have dragged you in." she paused, "Don't move too much, by the way. Half your ribs are broken, along with your legs, piece of the ceiling fell on you. Honestly, I wasn't even sure if you were alive, being that the thing was as big as your head." She moved her hands, making a rather large circle to emphasize her statement.

"…" he was silent, coming to terms with what he was told. He pulled the sheets off, showing the bandages wrapped around his torso, casts on his legs. Internally cringing at looking like half a mummy, he slouched into the backrest of the bed. He blankly stared at the wall in front of him, before finally breaking down, "Damnit!" Slamming his free paw into the bed, a lone tear falling from an eye. "Damnit, damnit, damnit!" repeatedly slamming the bed with a fury. With his body so damaged like this there was no way he was going back home in the near future, the humans would have to practically carry him to a hospital in one of the cities. After what seemed like hours, he had calmed down. The female just sat there watching him, not berating him for once. The room was completely silent, save for the constant annoying beep from the heart monitor. After a few more minutes Ryan spoke up, "So, how long until I can finally go home. Get out of this… nightmare?"

"That's up for debate right now. When we brought you in, it was a bit difficult to work on you. The doctors aren't… well, familiar with your types, or willing. But bones are bones, so they figure a few months until you can walk normally, if you have the same healing rate as us that is. Don't think to ask them for anything, though. I had to order them directly just to look in your general direction. I'm still waiting for that thank you for saving your life, by the way" pointing at him, but quickly lowering her hand. He didn't respond, resigning himself to contemplating his circumstance. She couldn't help but think back to his two outbursts as she watched him. She leaned back into the small chair she had called a bed for last night, letting it rock on two legs. She couldn't think of what to do, to be honest. Sure, she promised to let him go, but he's still an animal. Like her advisors and parents said, all animals are to be seen as a threat. On the other hand, when he had an opportunity he had to completely screw them over, he chose not to. Given the time she had to think over what happened in the time Ryan was out cold, she still couldn't come to terms of what to do. This conflicted with so many things, causing her to audibly groan. Ryan broke out of his trance, moving his head to look at her.

"It's nothing, go back to sulking." The comment caused Ryan to scoff.

"Sulk? Half my body is a vegetable, I have a right to sulk. I also have a right to blame you for it, too. If It weren't for you, I would be home drinking a nice cup of caramel coffee while binge eating and watching a marathon of some crappy T.V. show. But no, instead of that, I'm stuck as half of a mummy in some underground… hellhole!" he flung his arms up to make a point. "The worst part is, every time I had a chance to escape I hesitated or messed up. If I had ran out that hangar door as soon as it opened, I might have escaped. If I looked around that jet a bit more, there might have been some seat ejection button. If I had ran faster, I could have found some exit door out of here before getting crushed by a piece of concrete!" he yelled. The female stood from her chair, taking a few steps toward him, but stopping just before him.

"Hey, you're really lucky to even be breathing right now! You should be _thankful_ that we didn't have to amputate anything!" She pointed to his legs and arm, "A few more feet this way, a centimeter larger hitting you, you could have died!" She scolded. Noticing Ryan was getting aggravated, she decided she needed to de-escalate the situation, yelling at each other wasn't going to do any good. She sat back down in her chair, scratching the back of her head. She seemed to ease a bit, letting a small breath out. "Look, I'm not trying to make you angry again. I'm just trying to tell you that you were lucky to survive that."

Both stared at one another in silence, seemingly trying to read their minds. Ryan turned his head away from her, which only served to make the female a bit more tense. She was about to speak again, but before she opened her mouth, Ryan let his thoughts pour out first.

"No, I would have been lucky if I never was abducted by you. I didn't even know there was some hidden passageway! I was about to walk up that ladder and call it a day! But no, I get tranquilized and wake up in some interrogation room out of a spy movie!" nearly screaming at this point. Tired of the constant word battles, she decided to change the course of the souring conversation before it was too late again.

"I've thought about what you said for the past week." Causing Ryan to laugh for a few seconds, though it could have been just plain amazed shock that she actually did something other than plan world domination.

"That's a first" he deadpanned. Then his eyes widened a bit, fully realizing what she said.

"Week?! I've been out for a week?!" his voice raised as he started to panic. He tugged at his ears, that long already? He started to mumble to himself, the heart monitor starting to go haywire in the process. Letting him have his episode, she walking over to the machine, turning it off to spare her ears. She walked back over to the side of his bed, leaning again the wall. Once he calmed down enough, she started to talk to him. He had to turn his body to see her in the corner of his eye. Before he could let her have another piece of his mind, she spoke first.

"Just listen, please" she softly spoke. This caught Ryan off guard if nothing else. Never had she spoken to him in a tone like that, let alone say please. His mouth hung agape, trying to process what had just happened. Was this some sort of cruel trick to calm him down? Maybe, but constant fighting wasn't the most fun of things to do. He snapped from his thoughts, taking a deep breath, letting it out just in a loud sigh. "Alright, I'm listening," he finally responded.

"Well, you see…" she grunted, seemingly having lost what she was going to say. She tapped a finger on the corner of the headboard. Apparently hitting a brick wall of thought after not speaking for a good minute. Ryan stopped looking at her, slumping back into his bed, turning away from her again. He heard her move, then felt the bed seem to tilt. Was she seriously sitting next to him? A week ago she was going to shoot him dead, now she's comfortable enough to turn her back toward him while sitting down? Whatever she had been thinking in the past week, must've been some sort of miracle to make her demeanor towards him go from hostile to this. His ears automatically turned towards her as she spoke up again, seemingly finding the words she was looking for,

"I said you didn't understand, but not for the reasons you probably thought" her tone as calm as before.

"What could I have missed? We've been over this too many times to count"

"It's about before… before you were taken here. So no, you don't know" her tone a bit harsh. She softened up a bit, though. She continued, "They call me Madam President, but we're more-so a monarchy, if you know what that is." Ryan nodded his head, "As soon as we're able, we're taught about what you did to us, about why we're living the way we are"

"We've been over that. You had an experiment, it went bad, and then we took over the world. So what am I missing?" he started to get frustrated again. He already knew this, why was she repeating herself again?

"That's what _normal_ people are brought up with. Me, on the other hand… as soon as they could, I was taught how to run this mess"

"An upcoming leader being taught how to lead? Next you'll tell me water is wet" Ryan interjected. She gave him a glare that made him back off a bit.

"Zip it, I'm getting to the point, just trying to explain this to you. So pipe it down or I'll have a gag put on you." Narrowing her eyes at him, but deciding escalation was probably not the best of ideas, especially with how comparatively well things were going. Ryan coughed a bit, clearing his throat before speaking up again.

"Alright, get on with it, then"

"Anyway, I'm not raised by some teacher, or a guide. I just sat in the shadow of my parents, learning from them, sometimes an advisor or two would teach me a few things if my parents were too busy. If you thought that I wanted to kill all of you… you wouldn't want to meet them." She chuckled a bit. "At first, I bought everything they said, like any normal kid would when their parents or elders said something. After they died, I was left to be in charge, as you can see"

"What do you mean at first? It seems like you still do" he said. She stood up from the bed, turning towards him.

"If I still did, then you-" she pointed at him, "-would not be in that bed with an I.V. stuck in your arm." Pointing at the bed. Ryan looked to his right arm, a small clear tube with nearly invisible liquid running to his arm. He relaxed slightly, knowing she didn't have to put him on medication, and with what little they probably even had.

"Fine, what happened?" his tone calming.

"After they died, I was put in charge. At first, most didn't think I could lead, and I couldn't blame them. I barely got into my teenage years when I was thrown into where I am now. It's been about six years since then, so in my spare time, I decided to read the reports from anyone who had gone to the surface. Thousands of years of records, going all the way back to when you barely had learned to how make a house."

"Okay… are you getting anywhere with this?" his response was a finger shushing him, before crossing her arms.

"I was taught you were all savages, peace between even yourselves hanging by a string. That the slightest nudge would collapse your entire world. However…" she paused, almost seeming like she was straining herself saying what she was. Taking a breath, she continued, "The more reports I read, the less that made sense to me. You weren't tearing at each other's throats, you were getting along _just fine_. That goes against everything that all of us were taught. Yes, you live in cities, like civilized societies tend to do. But it's only supposed to be a sort of… imitation, where you don't really understand what you're doing, you just… do it. You're supposed to go haywire as soon as you see us. You're supposed to just be animals imitating what we are, too dumb to actually think for yourselves, but…" she paused. She bit the bottom of her lip, almost as if what she was saying was actually causing her pain. Ryan cleared his throat, bringing her out of her trance. She gave him a blank look, causing Ryan to raise an eyebrow in confusion.

"But…?" Ryan was incredibly confused at how she was acting. Maybe that rock hit him harder than he thought? She scratched the back of her head again, before making a look that seemed like she decided on what to say. "But?" he repeated again.

"You aren't like that. And it seems like some think the same way as well after seeing you. None would admit it, though." She sighed. From her body language, it also had seemed as if a giant weight had fallen off her shoulders, did she have that mentality buried in her somewhere already? He figured it was possible, now that he thought of it. Recalling when he was still in that chair when he was fake sleeping.

" _She's been acting strange…"_ he remembered one of her subordinates say.

"Hey, uh…" he stopped.

"Hmm?"

"I've just realized this… I was going to ask you something, but… I've never been told your name."

"…Right, must've skipped that part of the introduction while we were busy." They shared a laugh, seemingly finding a middle ground, finally. "Melanie, Melanie Louverne." She said. "Honestly, I don't even like my name, rather something along the lines of… well, it doesn't matter." She waved the thought off. Ryan looked at the clock on the wall, they'd been conversing for a while. Did she really have _this_ much free time? For a leader of sorts, that's kind of odd, best not to question it though. Having a non-hostile relationship has many more benefits than potentially angering her. Best to change the subject, he figured.

"So…what's with the other ones… uh… the Polts, right?" He asked, almost amused by the slight laugh it drew from the female-though it seemed more nervous than would be considered normal. "What's so funny? Sure they tried to kill us, but it doesn't mean they can't be reasoned with. Look at you, seems like I finally got through that brick wall." She scoffed in mock offense at his minor poke at her, but quickly went back to her usual neutral look, though much more serious. He could see that she was trying to explain something that would best be read in a ten thousand page book by how focused she seemed. Coming back from her thoughts, she started to explain just how ludicrous his statement was.

"Think of what I've said about my parents, then multiply it by some arbitrary and insanely high number. They don't even treat their own very well, as I said. If they had our weapons, your entire world would be, ah… nevermind. It wouldn't be good for you or us… or anyone for that matter, let's leave it at that," she started scratching the back of her head again, Ryan figured it to be an involuntary habit, "And to answer your inquiry of peace between us… we tried it multiple times. We've been at odds for a long, long time. A while ago, every so often we would send some poor soul that had hopes of ending it, only for him or her to… not come back. I haven't tried sending anyone, nor did my parents. Come to think of it, we haven't tried in a few hundred years. But given how things have been escalating lately, I highly doubt they would respond with anything but a body bag at our door step." She finished. Ryan had a slight look of shock, how could a conflict like this be so heated after this long? No wonder they didn't have an issue holding a grudge for twenty five millennia. Something nagged the back of his mind, though, what started all of this? He had to know, and seeing how he was finally getting answers, he might as well ask.

"What happened to make you two so hostile? I could understand a lifetime grudge, but this is just insane."

"Well, according to our documents, we used to be one big community around five hundred years ago. But, as usual, some civil discourse broke out. We splintered off from them and took a good portion of their cities. Since most of the cities we managed to take in our coup were military based, we didn't have too much trouble fending them off. To this day they still call us names such as traitors, murderers, and etcetera. But seeing how they treat their own kin, it's no wonder we broke off. A few of them have run from away, coming to us with plenty of horror stories. We don't want to send anyone to validate those claims, so we've just taken their word for it."

"That bad, huh?"

"Yes, _that bad_." She said. "On that note, it's also bad that I've been here for three hours talking to you. I have things I should get to." She stood up from the bed, stretching to get blood flowing to her ligaments again, letting a grunt out when she finished. "If you need anything, tap the button to your right, giant red one, can't miss it. Make sure it's for something that's actually important, this isn't some vacation away from home, as I'm sure you agree." With that, she left the room, leaving Ryan to process what happened. He slumped from his sitting position, cursing at the pins and needles feeling coming from nearly his entire body. Letting his head gently to the pillow to prevent any more damage that may accrue.

"I should get some rest, not like I can do anything else, anyway." Looking over to the button, he pondered one very important question.

" _I wonder if I can emergency call them to turn the lights off?"_

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" _In further news, former mayor Lionheart has been re-instated as the current elect mayor of Zootopia once again. Many believe his alibi was true, and his methods, though criminal, were at the time necessary. Newer former mayor Dawn Bellweather is awaiting trial, reasons I'm sure you're all aware of._

" _Thank you Kathy. Yes, it's taken nearly six months to get the trial set up and I'm sure you're all dying to keep your updates as up to date as possible. We, along with several news stations, have been allowed to film the event. So stay tuned on the trial date to be able to watch history in the making."_

"Finally, I'd began to wonder if they'd _ever_ get to her trial." Violet lazily spoke, one arm propping her head up while she lay on the couch. The news had been going crazy all around the country over the announcement of the nick-named "Savage Trials" finally getting underway. Doug and his two associates had pleaded guilty almost immediately, though their trials would probably take years to get to at this rate.

A few minutes of non-important news later, the doorbell rang, snapping her from her trance in front of the television. It was rang again, then again, starting to get of her nerves. Bolting from her couch, she made her way to the door.

"Coming! Don't kill the doorbell, please!" she shouted. Opening the door revealed the mammal she was supposed to remember was coming over. Which then reminded her that she was supposed to also do about twenty other things in preparation, of which a grand total of zero were accomplished.

"I wouldn't have to ring your doorbell if you checked your phone," giving her an amused grin.

"You know I barely check my phone, Romen. Besides, I was… busy, yeah." Crossing her arms, trying not to let him see that she in fact did exactly what he said, which was nothing.

"Hmm, yes. Busy watching T.V.? I'm going to assume you didn't do anything, either. You know, I told you to do them right away, lest you fall into your whole procrastination phase." Sounding like some sort of life coach. Violet rolled her eyes, standing aside to let him in. Making their way to the living room, she began to clear off her coffee table, Romen bringing another chair to the opposite side. Letting himself drop into the chair, he started going over what she had called him over for.

"So, you're absolutely sure he's not dead? I mean, no doubts at all, one hundred perfect sure?" he asked.

"For the last time, yes. I told you already, they only found his bag in that tunnel, after that, it looked like the hallway caved in, but they said there was something strange about it." She added.

"You didn't tell me that last part before, find it out recently?" Leaning back into the cushion as he spoke.

"Ah… no, well, kind of. They called a few days later to tell me what they had found covering his bag and the tunnel rocks. I just… couldn't remember everything from the call." She waved her arms in front of herself, "But that's not the point. They said it didn't look like a normal cave in, whatever a "normal" one looks like. They said it looked, well, controlled. The rock samples they took had various chemicals that weren't natural. As in, they were made by somebody." She leaned forward, looking to the ground. She had been trying to figure out why they were there for the past few days, but to no avail. "I don't remember the all of the chemicals they listed off, and I didn't think to write them down, or call them back come to think of it. But some were cyclonite, pentaerythrite, lithium grease and stearate, and… oh, right, dimethylbutane. There were more, but I don't remember them all." She slammed into the back of the couch, letting out a large breath in frustration.

"Did you search what those are used in? A quick internet search goes a long way, you know." He responded, getting his phone out. "A few taps, aaaand here we go. So, according to the National Chemical Assosiation, those are most commonly used in… hold on a second…" he swiped a few times, garnering a raised eyebrow from Violet. "I think I found out why that hallway was caved in, and those rescuers and whoever else looked into it may know too. Add in a few more things, and when you combine them all and let them sit in a solvent of some sort, you get a nice hunk of PE-4, also known as an explosive used by the military." That last sentence had Violet shoot her head up.

"The military did this?!" she shouted.

"No, I'm saying that it's a military grade explosive. They sell the stuff to normal mammals, you know. Though I doubt Ryan would be dumb enough to be carrying around military explosives with him in a tunnel." He finished. Both were trying to put two and two together, though this seemed more like trying to figure out something impossible.

"None of us would have had a need for that stuff at all. So either someone did it on purpose or… wait a minute. The town collapsed, do you think that the same stuff could've been used to level the town?" she began to think there was a conspiracy of sorts.

"If this stuff was there, probably. Wouldn't take much to bring those buildings down, just bring a single supporting pillar down and there goes the entire thing. Now, there was the earthquake, Violet. That would've brought them down too." He looked at her at his last sentence, seeing if she was even paying attention, or going off into conspiracy land. Surprisingly she was still looking at him, rather than what she'd usually do. Romen stared at her, trying to figure out what was running through her mind, though it was always a fruitless effort trying to read her. She clapped her paws, then started digging her phone out from her pocket.

"Okay, I'm going to call that rescue team's company and some others, and see if they'll send for another team to go and take a closer look. It'll probably end up blowing up in my face, but what else can we do?" she started to look through her phone for that logged call from the rescue company, but Romen talked before she could get to the number.

"Nothing? Violet, that place _at best_ , was one hundred degrees on a cool day. If he's above ground, the heat and humidity would've turned him into a raisin by now. Any of the water there is full of parasites and bacteria that would kill him anyway, if he were desperate enough to drink any, and there's nothing to eat there, anyway." She shot him an angry glare, he knew that look of disapproval. He had to convince her it was a waste of energy, physically and mentally, to think he was alive. But how? He knew explaining wouldn't usually stop her, but he had to try. Sometimes hammering a point would persuade her to at least postpone whatever she was doing, or force her to accept the truth. But this was a different scenario entirely. He wondered if she held Ryan in the same regard as her mother, seeing as she seemed like nothing would derail her from her goal. But his point still stands, hope doesn't keep someone alive- food, water, and shelter do. Ryan would have zero of those, right? Perhaps he went into a part of the tunnel that collapsed behind him, and he's already passed away from fatigue or injuries. He could be jungle food if not that by now, too. It was a mystery how he disappeared, and one that he felt may never be solved. So many possibilities, but all would inevitably end in Ryan's demise, Violet just couldn't accept that. But he knew better than to tell her that, it wouldn't do anything but cause her to work harder, instead of accepting what's probably happened. He went through the best way to convince her, coming to a conclusion a few minutes later.

"Violet, I have to know something. I want the truth, not some dream or hope you have," he spoke up.

"What?" instantly shooting back.

"Do you honestly believe that he has the slightest chance of being alive right now? If yes, what about a week from now? A month? A year? Will you keep thinking that he's alive when you're on your deathbed, just because his body wasn't found?" his voice raising with every sentence. She stared at him, opening her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She looked back down at the ground, giving her answer without even speaking. He knew it, she thought he was dead just as much as he did, she just didn't want to believe or admit it.

Romen's expression softened just a bit. Maybe he had been a bit harsh, but it got the desired results. However, just because he was dead, doesn't mean he should be left to rot in some uninhabited jungle to be eaten by insects and reptiles. He stood from his chair, walking over to the couch, sitting next to her. She must've been contemplating, or ignoring him, given how she didn't flinch when he sat down. Staring at her face for a few seconds, seeing how defeated she looked now that she had to accept he was gone. He leaned back into the couch, letting out a sigh, feeling a bit a stress going with it.

"Look, I'll still help you find him, I just didn't want you to think that he'd be still… well, alive. Our food would spoil within a few weeks, and the water wouldn't last long in that heat, either. Without any gas to run the generator, the purifier wouldn't run either. So _maybe_ he's alive right now if he's in that state. But the rescue team would've found him if he was, so he probably doesn't have access to the site if he's still alive. But like I said, I'll help you find him. I'm sure everyone else will too. Heck, start a funding campaign to help you get another team up to search for him, I'm sure plenty would donate to it," he finished, looking at her for a response. Well, she blinked, that was a good sign-maybe. She brought an arm up, wiping the side of her face he couldn't see, letting her arm rest back on her leg afterwards. She seemed to go back to spacing out for a bit, but came to a while later.

"Yeah… That's…" stopping for a few seconds, "That's probably for the best." She seemed to finish. Romen was about to speak up, but like he said before, nothing would stop her, "BUT, if you think I'm going to give up hope, you're dead wrong, and you know it. Yes, I would wait until I'm on my deathbed to finally say he's gone, and that's that." She stop back up, the look of defeat replaced by her usual determined self as she stared at him. Romen could only give a single chuckle, figuring he should've seen this coming.

"Alright then, miss positive, it's settled. However, it's getting late, and I like sleep as much as the next guy. We'll meet up later to set things up." He stood up, Violet following soon after. After he left the small house, he figured he might as well have a small victory in his argument, however small it might be.

"And remember to actually have the place ready, the tub of ice cream is halfway on the carpet!" he yelled, causing her to look back at the living room. She let out some words he couldn't make out, seeing as she slammed the door as she said them, though he could probably guess.

"Heh, long week indeed."

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Well, have to say, took slightly over a month to update a chapter. 2/3 of it was spending three weeks housesitting. The other two were just procrastination, though I did add a paragraph or two every other day. As of right now, chapter six is... mostly done. So that shouldn't take long, maybe. I say maybe a lot, don't I? Need to work on that habit...


	6. Chapter 6

Leaning against the counter, Violet had been on the phone for hours a day with as many mammals as she could get ahold of when she wasn't getting help from Romen. None were of any help as luck would have it. Two months had passed since his disappearance, and with the team sent to search for Ryan came back empty pawed on their second trip. Sighing and staring at her phone, contemplating whether to give up on her own search or not. Being determined to get something done at the start is easy, but time tests that drive, and it seems she was nearing her wits end. Feeling another headache coming, she knew she couldn't do anything but get a cold cloth ready. She had taken enough aspirin to warrant a trip to the hospital, any more wouldn't be very good for her health. That thought aside, she looked back at her phone. Rubbing her eyes and yawning, she scrolled to her boss, the last contact she went to on her now routine schedule. Pausing for a second, wondering if she should bother at all, but decided not to give up. She hit the call button, waiting for him to pick up.

"Violet I swear if you are going to ask-"

"Any word on if they've found Ryan yet?" interrupting him. "I've said it before and I'll say it now, he's not one to just disappear like this. Something happened to him, and I at least want to know what. I want closure to this, and not ten years from now!" Slamming her paw on the counter. She heard a drip on the floor, a tear, causing her to wipe her face with the free arm. "Two months, boss. He's been missing for two months. If he's alive, I'm going to make sure he gets back. If he's…I'm not going to let him just rot under some jungle tree. You shouldn't either." Her tone lowering to a near whisper. The phone was silent for a moment, giving her time to recompose herself. Her boss started talking again, his tone soft and caring, something rarely even heard or seen.

"Violet, they're not going to investigate any further. If it weren't so dangerous to even just walk in that place, they might've continued. But that place is barely mapped out, there's virtually no infrastructure, and just about anything that moves there will want to kill and eat you. It was hard enough getting our team out there, even harder to get a rescue team that would even want to go there to get him out. I'm sorry, but he's gone. He was a good friend to you, and I know this is difficult for you. But there's one thing I've learnt over my life, and it's to move on. Time will heal the pain."

"Is that why you stare at that picture of your wife when you think no one is looking?" she spoke without thinking, instantly realizing that wasn't a good thing to bring back up. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-" the sound of the line disconnecting buzzed in her ear. She knew she would pay hell for saying that tomorrow. "Stupid, stupid, stupid" she scolded herself. Putting her phone back in her pocket, she made her way to the living room sofa, plopping down on it with an audible _whoosh_ from the air. Picking the remote up from her coffee table, she turned on the television and started to flip through the channels. Five minutes of going through the "two thousand channels but nothing is on" phase later, she settled for some random replay of a sitcom she had seen too many times to care. Somewhere in the middle she had fallen asleep, but was awoken from a buzzing in her pants. She moaned internally, picking her head up. Glancing at the clock on the round table next to her, she noticed it was near midnight.

"Who could be calling this late?" she whispered to herself. Digging her paw in her pocket, grabbing the offending item keeping her from sleeping. After turning the brightness down to minimum after nearly blinding herself, she looked at the screen again. The caller I.D. didn't show any name she recognized, or even a number for that matter, just showing "Unknown" for the info. Against her better judgement she answered.

"Uhllo?" her speech was still waking up it seemed.

"Violet Weber, archaeologist, partner to Ryan Meyers in said field?" a male responded.

"Yes…?" she was almost worried at what this conversation was going to be.

"If you want to see him, you'll need to go to the main city hospital at New Hamstershire. He'll be there in a few days," He hung up before she could ask any questions. She didn't care either. Ryan is alive, that's all that mattered. New Hamstershire is so far away though. Almost a thousand miles from where she was, in Utfrexburt. She let the phone from her ear, staring at the screen. The "Unknown" caller still displayed on her phone. She tapped the call back option, only for the phone to say the number didn't exist.

"Worth a try, I guess" she contemplated whether to call her boss, even at midnight to tell him what had just happened. A text would be better she figured. She finished that, sending it to him, along with several other colleagues in a group text. As she predicted, no one texted back right away. She looked at her phone's clock, almost one in the morning now. If she was going to see Ryan, she needed sleep. Making her way to her bed, she internally screamed to herself in excitement. Two months of nagging everyone she thought could help had finally paid off, it seemed. Though imagining Ryan surviving in that jungle made her shiver. What did he eat? Did he contract some unknown disease? Too many questions that made her uneasy. Being alive didn't mean in good health. She needed to get ahold of him.

"His cell phone!" He never left anywhere without it. If that didn't work the hospital phone would have to suffice, though the hours of waiting for a response would be torture. She scrolled through her contacts, picking Ryan's number.

" _The number you have dialed is un-"_ she hung up, should've figured no one would pick up, that message meant his phone was off, too, probably no battery charge left. She would have to dial the hospital tomorrow to see if the claim was true. The thought of him being alive gave her enough hope, though. She went back to her phone, getting all her co-workers in a group text conversation.

" _Just got a call. They found Ryan! Tell the boss I'm gonna be gone for a bit, don't think he wants to see me for a bit anyway"_ tapping the send button. Noticing the time read nearly two in the morning, she figured no one would respond, which didn't help to quell her excitement. She did a fast walk to her room, picking up a pillow, proceeding to scream into it. After running out of breath, she let the pillow drop back onto the bed, proceeding to jump and dance like a child on Christmas day.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Ryan, you had better be prepared, because your chest will be a pancake when I'm done hugging you!" she froze in place a second later, "Okay, that sounded weird… ah who cares!" she started up again. She tapped a table lamp with her tail, causing it to fall, breaking the bulb upon contact with the floor, along with the shade. She stopped jumping, an embarrassed look on her face, "Okay, calm down Violet. Calm down, no need to bring the house down." Letting a large breath escape her. Picking up the glass and setting it on the table, she slammed into the bed, the force even launching her into the air a few feet. After finally losing the adrenalin filled moment pass, she finally felt fatigue start to take over. As she lay there, she couldn't think of whether she should just pack up and sleep at the airport to catch the flight right away or actually get a few hours of sleep. Shrugging after a few seconds, she let a small yawn out.

"Alright, procrastination, you win" she said aloud. It only took a couple of minutes for her to go from jumping off the walls to a rock, as per usual.

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"So, you're setting me free, now?" Ryan questioned Melanie. It had been a few months in his half body cast, his battered body had mostly healed, save for his right leg that was still in a cast. The two had been talking every off day since he woke up. Most of that time was awkward silence, for the first month at least. Small talk here and there, testing the water he figured. It was only a few weeks ago that she finally started to open up, however little it was. When he asked if she was feeding him some paste that looked like it belonged in a trash can, she gave him a confused look. She wasn't kidding when she told him they only ate one thing back at that outpost. Only water, and some paste that sounded like something astronauts ate out of a tube. Once a year they had the amazing luxury of a salad comprised of lettuce, lettuce, and more lettuce. The paste was about as bland as you could get it, and he had the displeasure of eating it for his entire stay. As for anything else in the past few weeks, she was still reluctant to talk about most things. Personal life? Forget about it. Hobbies? Fat chance. Just about the only thing she would talk to him about was… basically that she was thinking of whether to talk to him about anything.

"What, you don't want to leave?" She continued to give him a blank face, one she'd had for nearly his entire stay. Though he still counted it as a better expression than the pure distain she gave him a while back.

"Aha, no, er yes, well, No. I mean-" Stopping before he confused her more, he took a small breath before going on, "I want to get out of here just as much as you want me out, but I at least want you guys to get out of here too. Being cooped up in here is… well, as monotonous as can be. I've gotten when each person passes my door down to a point!" he chuckled, pointing to the door, a staff member walking past a second later. "Anyway, how long until I'm free to go?" he turned his head back to her.

"In a day or so. That leg of yours was basically paste a month and a half ago, you're lucky it only took two months,"

"Well, if I did lose it you'd have the amazing experience of eating meat for the first time. Since it's paste it'd be just like normal too!" He chuckled. He heard her give a short sigh, which quickly told him to tone it down a tad.

"I can still have that done. Remember, you're here under my orders, some might've been merciful, and send you topside to wither away. Most however, would've… well, you know. The doctors seem to have warmed to you a bit, though." She sipped out of the glass of water next to her. "Oh, I've been thinking." She said.

"Hmm?"

"When we send you back up, you'll need to go to your own hospital in... New Hamstershire, was it?" Ryan nodded, "You'll need to tell us where it is in relation to the sea. We'll have one of our-" stopping mid-sentence, he raised as eyebrow in response, "We'll be able to send you _near_ the shore. You'll have to swim a bit, otherwise we could be found out. Make sure to tell us when it's most populated, you won't walk very far without your body giving out." She'd never let her tongue nearly slip that far before, though that only made him think she was close to warming up to him, at least a little bit.

"I thought military talk was forbidden? Don't tell me you're going soft on me." He jabbed.

"Swimming it is." She responded, her face still blank. Ryan could never tell if she was serious or not when she "joked", even after two months he still had to guess on what was serious or her version of a joke.

"Hah, good one!" he slapped the mattress with his good paw, though the laugh seemed extremely forced. He'd resorted to testing to see if she was serious, she didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor, not surprising though. "Right?" his voice a little more tense. He swore he saw the smallest smirk on her face, but he quickly found it's best not to test her. The last time he misread her he was left without painkillers for an entire day.

"Did I sound like I was joking?" she seemed to have a slight annoyance in her voice, she couldn't be that cruel, _right_? "Because that's the best you're going to get out of me," Ryan noticed she did have the smallest smirk, but was infinitely more focused on the relief that washed over him. He gave a small laugh, but soon returned to normal.

"In all seriousness, though, you really don't want to go to the surface? I've been here long enough to give you a taste of what we're like" he gave his largest smile.

"And what an impression you've made" She crossed her arms, leaning forward her chair. "You still haven't apologized to the nurse you nearly bit the hand off of"

"I was asleep! It's not my fault she felt like poking her fingers in my mouth!" he actually felt a bit offended at that. Seriously, his teeth are made for tearing flesh, why would you prod around what equates to a sausage in a knife den?

"She was getting saliva samples from you, since you wouldn't let them do it when you were awake." Her voice raised slightly, that dreaded narrowing of the eyebrows started to form.

"Look, how about we let bygones be bygones. I was asleep, it was an accident, no harm was even done. Can we agree on that?" He raised his good arm out for a handshake. She stared at his paw for a few seconds before slowly extender her own hand out. The look on her face made it seem like she thought something would jump out of his paw if she got too close to it. Finally though, she did shake in agreement.

"Alright! Now that we've agreed on something, we should keep that streak up!" his voice filled with a bit more enthusiasm. "Back to what we were talking about, before the whole hand-bite-thing, you should go up there! Hey, at least you won't have to eat this paste anymore" giving his best grin.

"Tempting, but no. The council needs to come to a majority agreement on the matter, I only count as five votes out of twelve. Given how nearly all of them want your head on their desk, it's not going to happen any time soon."

"Yeah, but you're the leader, right? Can't you just… override them?" he asked.

"Really? Yes, let me vote against all the council members, potentially making them wonder if I should be in charge, which could spark a civil war along with the one with the Polts? Brilliant idea!" she exclaimed.

"Alright, alright, I get it. Sorry for trying to help. You really need to work on being nice for once, tone down the bitterness, would help a lot" crossing his arms at the last sentence. She seemed… amused? She didn't have a look of anger, that much was certain. She soon lost the look, however, going on with her explanation like he hadn't even interjected.

"Besides, I only count as five out of twelve votes, remember? I'd need two of them to vote for it." She deadpanned. "And with our current conflict, that isn't exactly high on the priority list." Adding on to the bucket list of things she had to keep track of to him. Ryan gave a bit of an awkward smile to show he was defeated, though straightened out when he went to speak.

"Oh, that reminds me too. How have you guys been at war with the Polts for so long but we've never even noticed? I mean, we were in a jet, those things aren't quiet. Besides, thousands of mammals have a radar, or satellite feed." He asked.

"We fly in the clouds most of the time, so imaging won't work nearly as well, and we have anti detection measures for radar and tracking. We could fly over your capitol city and you would be none the wiser. I say that because we done that before, by the way" Leaning back into her chair. "Going back a bit, the only way the others would accept revealing ourselves is if they're given a good enough reason or incentive. Better food isn't exactly a great bullet point."

"Oh! What if some other group of humans came up first, not yours. If they didn't like you, they could get us to attack you by spreading false information. But if you go up first that's not an issue!" He gave her a look like he was the smartest being alive.

"But they haven't, the only ones other than us are the Polts as far as we know, and they are not fond of you, Remember? They'd rather surprise attack you before talking. Though they wouldn't be able to take over the world, they'd probably be able to take a good chunk of land. But as far as we can tell, they don't have enough resources to engage in a prolonged war." She was staring to ramble.

"What about you? Didn't you say that you could?" He recalled their earlier encounter. " _We could wipe one of your largest cities off the face of the Earth in a matter of seconds, but it's for a last resort."_

"They have a large number and resource advantage. We have the technology gap, and are always on the defense, so they have a much harder time getting to us. We also don't charge into battle expecting brute force to win out like they do."

"So why not "tactically" take over a place that has a ton of resources and build yourself up?" he asked. "I mean, I know it's not that easy, but you have the element of surprise, so you might have a good chance at it."

"Which would escalate their efforts to beat us, which in turn, would escalate the war, which would in turn have a much greater chance of you finding us. We let him attack us, we repel it. Rinse and repeat, it's worked perfectly fine so far, there's no need to change that." Ryan gave her a look like he was about to try and refute that last point, but she already knew what he was going to say.

"That thirty jet pursuit and subsequent dogfight was the first ever. Usually they send one or two at the most, mainly due to risk of exposure. We call it a war, but it's really just dig a tunnel to their base and attack. The jets are for transport or reconnaissance. Rarely do they ever go into combat like you saw. But like I said, we dig a tunnel to them, that takes a lot of time and resources better put elsewhere. We just let them attack and we repel them." She finished.

"Like that outpost that got over ran?" He gave his own monotone voice, though it was really just in jest.

"You mean the one we took from them two years ago and already had all the important things gutted out of it? We were going to destroy the place in a few months anyway, what do you think we collapsed the above ground city for?" she shot back. Seems she won this battle, though neither were keeping count.

"Well, again, why not beat them? Sure it'd take a lot of effort, but-"

"Because we can't, they have a ten to one advantage to us. Technology can only compensate for so much. Whatever we take from them, they'll eventually take back. So we've resolved to fortifying our original underground settlements to be impossible to take, or extremely difficult. What we do take, we either gut it like the last place, or we see if we can hold it indefinitely- which has never been successful. That outpost was actually a new record. I was considering making it a permanent one, but changed my mind after we realized you were there. You saw what happened after that. Before that however-" She walked around the room to keep herself preoccupied while she spoke. Ryan followed her with his eyes, half paying attention, half being in dreamland because of the painkillers they put him on.

" _Huh, didn't notice she cut her hair, I liked it when it was longer. Shoulder length is fine though. Oh, is that a new blanket that nurse is bringing? Ah… nope, next room."_ His thoughts going from one subject to another.

"- But after that, I was set in charge of the military as well. Dead people can't exactly lead an army. It was a bit… are you even paying attention?"

"Should I give the correct answer or the real one?" he gave his best poker face. Her signature _"Are you freaking kidding me"_ look, as he took to calling it, was plastered on her face. "Look, these meds make it REALLY hard to focus. Short and sweet, add some explosion sounds in, and you'll have me fully attentive." Giving his best grin and a thumbs up.

"Unbelievable… if you're having that much trouble I can take you off them again. I'm sure no one would object." Crossing her arms. "Don't think I'm joking, either. It was difficult enough to get you on them. Others had to wait a few more days to get theirs. I didn't even get so much as a thanks from you, either."

"Thanks." He instantly said. She looked a bit aggravated at his attempt at a joke, a poor one, even for him. "Alright, alright. I am thankful that I'm not in constant agony. But, I feel that the medication evens out the whole vent shenanigans thing. So I'd say we're even." Smirking at her.

"Hmph, I guess so. Even so, I-" A knock on the door made her look over. Opening it presented a male in what looked like military garments. He whispered something into Melanie's ear then left as fast as he came. The door was left open with her still standing there in thought.

"Earth to Melanie, anyone home?" Ryan piped up. The sudden break of her train of thought made her jump a bit, turning to him in the process.

"It's nothing, just go to sleep or something. I've got some things to take care of. If you absolutely have to, call a doctor to help you to go to the bathroom. Your leg still isn't healed enough to put weight on it." Talking as she left through the door.

"Nothing she says? Hah, women speak the same no matter what, it seems." His grin left immediately after, "But what could have her so spooked? That look was like she saw a ghost." He let the bed fully encompass him as he fully laid down, "Best not to think about it too much, not like I can do anything like this, either." He stared at the ceiling. Having woken up not two hours ago, there's no way he could force himself to sleep now. A few minutes passed, then more, then more. Soon it felt like hours, though the clock on the wall opposite of him begged to differ. Only half an hour, which felt like ten. Wishing He had his phone, which had been assumed destroyed at the outpost he had to abandon, the only source of entertainment was his imagination, which over the course of nearly two months, had begun to run out of ideas. More time passed, now going on three hours, four, six…

"With a rebel yell. She cried more, more, more!" resorting to singing random songs to keep himself occupied. He was brought to a halt, however, when a nurse opened the door.

"Dinner" was all she said. Joy, more pink paste and water. At least the others actually spoke to him now. Before, as he found out, they would play some sort of game, be it rock paper scissors, drawing sticks, to find out who had to "deal with him". After a month they seemed to have just gone into a routine.

"Looks amazing as usual" he quirked.

"I can give you the brown colored one instead of you want." She shot back.

"Ha, no thanks. I like pink more." He instantly began eating to shut himself up. Just imagine it's warm pudding, he took to telling himself. He honestly didn't know what was in the stuff, but he didn't die of starvation, so he didn't care much either. But what he would give for a nice bug burger. A few seconds after he started eating, her pager buzzed. She took a look at it, then left the room in a bit of a hurry. He shrugged, not putting much thought into what might've caused her to nearly run out of the room. After he finished eating, the clock read nearly seven in the afternoon. One more day down, only a few more to go.

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"You're sure?" She paused for a moment, her advisors and generals letting her sort things out. "God damnit Ryan, you jinxed yourself and everyone else…" she whispered. She waives her informant out of the room, waiting until the door was locked to continue. Looking at the rest of the people surrounding the rest of the metallic table, she could tell all of them had the same look as she did. She leaned back in her chair, though not being able to relax given the potential situation. The news seemed to have fully saturated with everyone, all lost in their own thoughts. Taps of fingers on the table, rocking of chairs, she could tell it was going to be a long afternoon. One of the men cleared his throat, bringing her from her thoughts.

"If I may?" He asked.

"Go on, Smith" Melanie answered. He nodded in response, looking at the rest of the people at the table before nodding to himself.

"Well… I say we do nothing. As far as we know, they won't be able to hold any ground they take for long. The sheer size of the mammalian kingdom would be able to push back. Millions will die on the animal's side, presumably," he clasped his hands together, a bit of nervousness seeping through, "But the Polenitians don't have the manpower to push them back for too long once they stretch themselves thin inevitably." He continued to look to the others, probably looking for approval of his opinion.

"The animals are cowards, they'd surrender as much as they'd need to just to survive. After that, they would have an even larger advantage against us than they already do. It would only be a matter of time before they launch an all-out assault on us after that." Another retorted.

"It's also entirely possible they aren't attacking them, they could've founded another city long ago that we've just stumbled upon. We aren't omnipresent or omnipotent, we could have missed a few. Besides Monty, we don't have a full picture, that's why I say we do nothing for now." Smith argued.

The once scheduled normal meeting had been going for hours, with the news of bombers and large carriers moving about putting everyone on edge. The air was tense, that shipment volume being transported all at once was unheard of. Then again, that thirty fighter jet assault was unheard of as well. It was a miracle that those bunker busters were shot out of the sky, save for a damaged one that missed and piled into the ground a mile away due to the tail being shot off. The damage to the base was marginal, nothing that couldn't be repaired in another month, most of it being replanting the grass. No plans were made for a counter offensive, they had been resigned to a defensive strategy for the last five hundred years, and it had worked well so far.

"Before we jump into conclusions, let's just play it by ear for now. If they are going to wage a surprise war against the animals, they must be pretty damn sure they can win it, or force them to sign a cease fire at the least. If it's a new city, it's been there for a long time. You can't make a hangar to house fifty bombers and carrier planes in a few days. Let alone an entire military or city installment." Another spoke up, pausing for a second to think on how to continue. "However, if in the absolute worst case scenario, they look like they can win against the world, we will be forced to intervene. They know all our locations, it would only be a matter of time before they decide to drop enough bombs to make our underground cities into twenty mile deep craters once they rebuild." He finished. The room was silent. For so long they had been under the utmost secrecy, they had figured the Polts had the same idea.

"I agree with Montero, if they were to start a war with the mammals, we would be forced to pick a side. Either side with the ones who're trying to kill us right now, or the ones who tried to kill us twenty five millennia ago." Melanie spoke up. "I think I'm correct in saying none of you would want to pick either side. As he said, however… we would be forced to, whether we like it or not. And with how our relations with the Polts go… we would be more or less inclined to side with the mammals." The entire room looked to her, she hadn't let them down before, so if she thought siding with the mammalians was their best bet at survival, they would most likely side with her… mostly.

"When would we intervene, though? We haven't the power or resources to wage an offensive war with the amount of troops they have right now. If we wait too long they could sign a peace treaty or cease fire with the mammals. Our only course would be to wait until they're stretching thin, know for certain where they'd attack next, and set up an ambush. The element of surprise is all we'd have. That only lasts for a short while, too" Monty said. It was true, they could defend themselves extremely well, but there's no way an offensive war would go over well for them. Aside from the resource crisis that would ensue, none of them had any experience whatsoever in large scale battles that would be occurring.

"Like Montero and Smith said, we don't know if they're even going to attack. However, fifty bombers and transport carriers in one sitting isn't something to brush off. We need to keep a close eye on that area for any activity. If we aren't prepared, we won't last long. I say we wait, see if they are going to war. If so, see how the war progresses, then strike when the Polts are at their weakest or most occupied, relatively speaking. The only problem is that we only have enough armor and aircraft to defend ourselves." Melanie finished. Another began to speak, but stopped. Looking over, Melanie noticed it was the newest member, replacing the one before her only a month ago. She had the knowledge and wit, but her self-confidence left much to be desired. "Go on Valerie, you're as much a member of this table as the rest of us" Melanie raised her hand halfway, gesturing to her.

"Well, all I'm getting from this is that we are to leave ourselves completely open to attack if we are to, well, attack. So either we anticipate a counter to our offensive and retreat to safety, or we evacuate our outer cities and fortify our inner ones." Valerie added. Smith rubbed his temples, no scenario thought of so far would leave them with little casualties.

"You forget though, they're two generations behind us in nearly all wartime technology. We might not even need to defend. Yes, they have superior numbers, but their ground to air missiles and radar can't get a lock on any of our stealth jets until thirty or so miles, too short a window for any form of defense that would be effective. Their tanks are marginal at best as well, they can only deal significant damage from the rear." Montero said.

"A tank that's twenty times as good won't do well against thirty other tanks, Ramirez. Once they close the ground, they'll flank us, same with our air forces. Having an army in wait would be futile. Besides, you all forget, what if even after we-I can't believe I'm saying this, _defend_ the animals, they decide to attack us?" Monty retorted. The room fell silent, save for tapping feet and fingers. Melanie looked around the room, spotting the two who hadn't said anything so far. Time to see if they had some secret plan up their sleeve.

"Russel, Ford, you two have been quiet for the entire time. Any input here?" Melanie piped up. The two looked at each other for a second and nodded.

"We were talking while you five were rambling, both of us think it best if we do nothing. If we fortify ourselves more no attack will reach us. Also, even if the Polts somehow win the war against the animals, the casualty count for them will make it a laughably one sided victory if we decide to attack them afterwards. The military power would be spread thin if they manage to take any amount of land, a few air raids will be able to force them into submission." Russel looked at Ford, giving her a turn to talk.

"As Russel was saying… If they can defeat the animals, or as we were doing, working on the cure, we should attack them right after their war if it seems like we have a good chance of winning. This would ensure our own survival, while simultaneously getting rid of both rivals and threats."

"We're working with a lot of "If scenario's" people. Let's wait a bit and see what happens. Besides, our cure has barely progressed since it began. A cure may not be viable now, anyway." Smith was at a near whisper, he had been massaging the sides of his head for a while now. A headache induced Smith was not one to be argued with. The counsel looked at him, waiting for an explanation for his claims.

"Our teams that took the samples from the subject… what was his name again?"

"Ryan" Melanie answered.

"Right, right. Our samples from Ryan show that whatever they did to the animals generically so long ago seems to have, well… completely fused with their D.N.A." The counsel kept staring at him. "Layman's terms, it's likely impossible to turn them back, they've been infected for so long passing the thing from generation to generation that it's become part of them. The only way to get rid of them would, for lack of better words, engineer our own animals like they were before all this happened, then slowly get rid of the ones currently on the surface."

"You're positive, Smith? No doubts in your mind whatsoever?" Melanie asked. He gave a nod in response. Melanie looked around the small round table, examining everyone's facial expressions. Most seemed like they wanted to just ignore all this, she couldn't blame them, honestly. She slammed her hands openly on the table and stood up, garnering everyone's attention.

"Well, gentlemen! I say we call this meeting adjourned for now. We'll meet again tomorrow to discuss this, I expect for our contingency plan to be decided on by the end of the week, understood?" All nodded, "Alright, meeting adjourned, goodnight men." She left the room quickly at first, though not in a hurry. She needed to see if Ryan knew his own countries military prowess. The more they knew, the better they could prepare in the case they are going to wage war. She just had to hope the animals didn't notice the bombers, otherwise they may not have any time to prepare.

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" _Reports of several unidentified flying objects were seen over the coast of the small uninhabited island of Edaiho. No information has been found on what the objects were. Many believe the videos to be staged or a military exercise. Though some believe it to be proof of alien visitation. So far no comment has been made by officials, which serves only to stir more unrest, keep tuned for more information."_

Mainstream and small news channels had been talking of the camera videos showing what looked like a series of incredibly small, white dots in small portion of the sky, traveling the coastline far away. This isn't something Violet would usually expect to wake up to on the morning news.

" _According to our sources, a small group of fishermammals were headed out to the coast of the island at night, when one of the crew members saw something in the sky"_ the reporter spoke. The camera transitioned to another spot in the small town, a small koala starting to talk.

" _I was just coming up to get some fresh air, Rest of the guys were asleep, cause, y'know, midnight. So, I see some weird lights out in the distance, so I just took some phone video. One of the other guys came up when he heard me shouting. I told him to get a real camera, like, one that can zoom in really good. But when he came back they were already gone, went over the horizon. I don't know about you, but that island's always been weird, now it feels like it's haunted or something."_ Re-enacting what he did as he spoke, grabbing his phone out to try and show his footage again. Honestly, it really did just look like a bunch of tiny dots slowly moving across the sky, given how blurry the video was. The lights were flying near cloud level, slowly moving towards the horizon. His crew-mate coming up to check on what was going on, then the dots disappearing soon after.

"I've always loved how when they get some "footage" of stuff like this it's always on some potato of a camera," she joked. Her phone buzzed in her pocket a bit later, sounding off the alarm tone she set for herself. "Too bad, this was just getting interesting" turning off the alarm, stuffing the phone back in her pocket. Finishing her coffee that had long gone cold since she made it, she set off for work to tell them she was going to see Ryan the next day. Seeing how she probably had pissed her boss off with her unfiltered comment, he'd probably let her just to spare both of them from the arguments that would ensue. Ah well, she'll deal with that when she gets to work.

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No, I'm not dead. Just kind of… had more important things to do. Besides, this is just a hobby, and you can only do hobbies when you have free time. Anyway, until next time~


	7. Chapter 7

Well, I honestly forgot about this thing for a while. Busy with stuff, blah blah blah. Anyways, as mentioned last chapter (I think), I don't really have a set time to do these, since this is really just a time killer for me, also because I haven't actually seen a good story about HIZ (not that mine is really any better, but I'm still biased to say I like mine more).

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Traffic, why was there always traffic at the worst possible moments? Knowing you'd normally only be ten minutes away if things were normal makes it even worse. The incessant honking was going to drive her insane any second now as well. Do they think that slamming the horn is going to magically make the line move forward? Letting herself slump further in her seat, she cranked the volume dial to a level that would probably make anyone deaf within a few minutes just to drown the rest of the noise out. After seemingly three and a half eternities, the traffic finally started to move from a dead stop to a somewhat bearable pace. A few minutes later she saw the culprit of her lateness. Seems someone didn't know how to drive their fancy sport car, and decided he should introduce it to a semi-truck. Shaking her head, traffic went to its normal pace a few seconds after the wreck. Coming up to her work, she saw that everyone else must've met her fate as well. Only her boss's truck sat in his usual spot, maybe he'd be a bit softer since she made it first? She quickly parked her car, nearly diving out of it before hearing a voice a few seconds later.

"You're late" the voice said, her turning her body slightly to the source. Her boss was just getting out of his truck, seems he got there only a few seconds before her. He turned back to his truck, grabbing something from the other seat, continuing to talk, "Though I can't exactly scold you for it this time, seeing how some idiot couldn't drive" he finished. Turning around revealed a small plain cake along with a small paper bag, probably full of plastic utensils.

"Uhm… right. Look, about last night-" she was cut off by him raising his paw.

"I've already _forgotten_ that conversation, don't try to bring it back up. This is to be a celebration of sorts, anyway. Also, did you notify Ryan's family of his status? I'm sure they're the ones that should know most of all." He said, walking to the front door, meeting Violet halfway.

"Ah, nope. I didn't, should probably do that now then, right?" giving a slight laugh, he definitely wasn't in a great mood today. As they entered the building, she followed him to the main hallway as she dialed Ryan's sister. A couple of seconds later she was already telling her about him, the sound of utter excitement screaming from the speaker, though by the strain and hoarseness of her voice she could tell she had been extremely depressed. She quickly thanked Violet, hanging up a few seconds later. Violet didn't even realize she had followed her boss to the break room when she stopped going on auto pilot.

"When everyone else gets here, tell them to head straight to the break room, cake goes stale very quickly when left out in the open." He said, setting the cake and bag down on the small coffee table. Taking the items out of the bag showed the expected utensils, but she didn't expect ice cream to boot.

"Right, they should be here any minute now anyway. We all usually get here around the same time, they can't be that far behind." She paused for a bit, giving a small sigh, "Look, I really am sorry about bringing up… that. I was just tired, and said something stupid," she finished.

"Violet. Drop it. I've already said that I've _forgotten_ it. Unless you cannot understand social cues, I suggest you not bring that up again." If words could cut, she'd be strips of jerky by now. She pursed her lips to prevent herself from talking, quickly turning around to go to the front door. She definitely did not want to make things worse right now. Her phone buzzed a short while later, a wall of messages showing up.

" _Hey, tell the boss I'm gonna be late, he's not answering his phone."_

" _Hey, just want to let you know I'll be really late, traffics not even moving right now."_

The rest painted the same picture, looks like she was extremely lucky, probably leaving a split second early enough to get through in time. Without everyone else here she couldn't get much done, all there was to do was wait. There's no way she was going to tell her boss that she was going to leave for Ryan for a couple hours at the least, not unless she wanted to live. Sitting in the front desk lounge chairs, she sifted through the internet, killing time until everyone else managed to break free of the jam outside. After seemingly hours, one finally arrived, the door chime signaling her to look up.

"Hey, look who managed to show up" she joked.

"Honestly, I would've made it here faster if I took a walk instead" he looked around, finally settling on looking at Violet. "Where's everyone else? Stuck in the traffic?" he received a nod in response, "Figures. I see the boss made it, no surprise there, where is he by the way?" walking to the chair next to her as he spoke, sitting down with a loud thud of the cushion. Violet looked up from her phone, resting her head on her propped up arm, staring at the wall in front of her.

"He's… probably in his office. I wouldn't go to him for a while though" her last sentence giving of a nervous chuckle.

"Do I even want to know?" he crossed his arms, eyebrows raised slightly. She nodded side to side, "I said something dumb, that's all there is to it" she turned towards him, "Now he's acting like some dad that's so angry instead of screaming he just gives you that 'you've done messed up' look instead" air quoting for emphasis.

"Well, he'll get over it soon. Besides, once Ryan gets back he'll lighten up" he noticed Violet's ears perk up, noticing a slight 'ding' go off in her head as she sat up straight.

"Oh! Almost forgot, there's cake and ice cream in the break room, wait till everyone else is here though. I don't want someone getting pissed because they didn't get a slice or something"

"Hey, first come first serve is the rule of the land where I'm from. Not our fault they left two seconds later than us" he sat up, stretching as he did. "I'm going to the food, don't worry, it'll still be there" disappearing down the hallway a short bit later. Time to wait for the others….

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" _Hy, wk u. Rn, wa up"_ his ear twitched at the annoyance trying to wake him from his sleep. The annoyance continued, so he sluggishly swatted his arm in the direction it came from. Suddenly, he felt something wet and cold slam on his head, causing him to shoot up.

"Cold cold, cold, cold!" he grabbed his blanket to wipe himself off, once he was finally warm again, he already knew who had done this horrible crime. "You know, a slight pat or shove would do the trick instead" he sat up, leaning on the backboard with the pillow as a cushion.

"I didn't feel like you swatting at me again. Besides, it worked" sitting the glass down on the counter next to her. "Before you try to say anything, I've questions that need answering. No funny business at all, this is extremely serious, understand?" her tone wasn't hostile like he would expect with those words, something must've spooked her to act like this.

"Shoot" he responded.

"Do you know of any secrets and whatnot of your countries military capabilities?" Ryan's expression went straight to confusion.

"…What? You're not going to attack us are you? Come on, I thought we were making some progress here" she brought a finger to his mouth, hushing him.

"No, _we're_ not, but _they_ might be, and soon. Very soon. So we need to know what you know. I don't want to hear any jokes of any kind. I want answers, and nothing else. So, what do you know? If there's anything that you know that we don't you need to tell us" her words spoken like some movie on fast-forward.

"Well, what do you know? I'm not going to sit here and think of stuff if you already know about it. Besides, I'm an archaeologist, not some military general. I barely even cared about that stuff." She started giving him "that" look. "Look, tell me what you know, I'll add on. Sound fair?" he finished.

"Fine. You've barely started to use jet propulsion in your aircraft, mostly relying on propulsion via turbine or propeller. Your radar can't pick up anything that we or they use. Your anti air and tanks, along with your missiles are rudimentary at best. And you've hardly any advanced personnel weaponry since you rarely ever war against one another. From what we can see, you do have plenty of satellites and commercial airliners, which could be retrofitted if needed. That's the short and sweet of it."

"…That sounds like just about everything." He gave her a blank stare, they really have a hawk eye on them for her to know all of that. He shook his head, gathering his thoughts, "Hold up a sec. Back up few minutes, the Polts are going to attack us?"

"We don't know, that's why in the case that they do, I figured you might know something we didn't. That way we I decide the best thing to do" she grabbed the empty glass, starting to twirl it around.

"What about us, though? I mean, I get that maybe you might not try to kill us anymore. Well, if we left you alone, at least. But actually just letting us die is something entirely different" he continued to remain confused, slightly less so.

"If we decided to help you, it'd be a side effect. If they manage to seize land above ground, we will be in much more danger. Agriculture will be infinitely easier, and there wouldn't be any issues with housing space. That means more people to throw at us. My first and foremost concern is my own people, not yours. Anyways, that's all I needed, you can go back to staring at the wall" she started making her way to the door, a slight buzz emanating from her pants pocket. Drawing it out and reading the message displayed, Ryan could see annoyance plastered on her face. She darted out of the room before he could ask what was going on. Only seconds later an alarm started going off, the sound of thundering footsteps coming from below and above him. The door to his room opened, a nurse running to his bed.

"Can you walk?" she hurriedly asked.

"Probably…? I haven't really tried, agh… what's going on?!" she didn't answer, grabbing him out of his bed.

"Come, we need to go to the bunker" then it clicked. Another bombing raid, they had been hobbling past others when the alarm stopped, the intercom replacing the noise.

" _False alarm. I repeat, false alarm, enemy aircraft have averted course and are headed away from this facility. All staff members and civilians, you may return to your duties and activities with caution, be alert and stay prepared in case of another emergency"_ he heard a collective sigh of relief as the tension in the air broke instantly. As the nurse guided him back to his room, he noticed the glares he received from the others. Seems most still wanted him out, or worse. That honestly wasn't surprising though, given their view of his kind. That didn't really matter anymore, though. Soon he would be out of this place, and as long as he didn't let their existence slip out of his mouth, he should be scot-free. Letting himself fall into his bed, he counted down the few mere hours before he was to depart, as long as everything went as scheduled that is. Now to find some way to kill time as fast as possible…

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The office was now fully staffed, though an hour later than usual. The festivities slowly dying down, people going back to their usual routine, save for Violet. Thankfully she was given three days to return with Ryan, or at least have him transported to the nearest hospital. She gave her goodbyes, starting her trip to New 'Shire. Expecting a two day round trip, with an extra to get Ryan situated, should be ample time. Tuning to her usual radio station, she relaxed into her seat to let it drown everything else out, the sixteen hour drive was going to need it.

" _Well, Dia-a I'- sure -e Green -x won't let t-ems-ves be be-en on their -wn turf.-"_

"It's only been a couple hours and I'm already out of range… what else is on…" flipping through the stations, glancing at the road every few seconds to see if anything decides to jump out at her.

" _-Crafts causing a fair amount of unrest in the coastal city. With no word from our government about what happened, how can you blame them? If a bunch of random stuff started flying over my head and I had no idea what it was, I'd be a bit nervous too! That's the second time this week, that fuzzy camera video being the first. Like I said before, without any word from the military or our damn leaders, what are we supposed to think? That alien conspiracy is starting to make a lot of sense to some people. Even if we get some canned response like some exercise, it's taken so long that rumors are bound to spread."_

Raising an eyebrow, she seems to have found a new favorite station. Another sighting, in broad daylight? There's no way it would be aliens, though. Probably just some new jet fighter the knucklehead pilots at the air force are trying out.

"Seriously, do we really need another killing machine? There hasn't been a war for like… ever" rambling to herself, turning off a freeway. "I'd give it till' next week, then they'll have some surprise airshow where they unveil their newest wonder-craft" she chuckled to herself. A few minutes later, traffic started to slow to a crawl, with her spotting a few road workers in the distance. "Great… this is going to take forever."

Forever it did seem to take, half an hour passing before the workers in the distance turned from a blur of fur to an animal. Getting closer and closer, she heard a strange sound overhead, though extremely faint. Noticing a few others peeking out of their car upwards, her soon following, she saw what looked like hundreds of tiny dots slowly moving across the sky.

"That must be what the radio was talking about… at least… I hope so. Well… that airshow must be starting soon, I guess…" she joked, though even she wasn't laughing. Feeling a few goosebumps at the view, she sat back down in her seat, turning the radio back on.

" _-Just worried, I mean, I'm not trying to cause any panic. But there were tons of those things in the sky. Unless we get some explanation soon, I don't know what everyone else will do. I don't think it's aliens or anything, it might just be some new jet that some company or the military made."_ A voice said, probably a talk guest.

" _If it was a brand new aircraft, there'd only be one of them. Maybe two or three if they're feeling adventurous, not hundreds. Another thing, too, tons of people have stuff that can pick up other planes and stuff. But I've had quite a few people on here, and none of them managed to see anything on the scope. All those things, and not even one blip?"_ The host responded.

" _I'm sure we'll get some explanation, just give it a week or two."_ Was all the guest seemed to think of.

" _Oh, I'm sure we'll get some explanation, all right. But it better be a good one. Some last second thought or pre-recorded response isn't going to cut it for a lot of us"_ With that, Violet turned the radio back off. Silence was much preferred to the near fear-mongering of that station. Guess she'll have to cross that one off her favorite list.

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So, this is it, the time finally ticked down to zero. Already hobbling to what he could only assume would be a ship of some sort, seeing that he didn't notice any aircraft in the hangars when he walked by. A soldier had come into his room, explaining what he was to do as they were walking. When he reached his destination, about five miles from the beach, he would be "dropped off". When Ryan asked why he was being dropped off so far away, the soldier just said "So the rest of you can't see us when we get there. Don't be worried though, we've made you a small wooden craft, should last until you get close to the beach. You remember the promise you made, right?" the soldier giving him a glare, daring him to test his patience.

"Don't worry, you'll get to keep living in your comfy hole in the ground. Just… don't send any weird things to spy on me. Privacy is kind of a thing you know, besides, my shower singing is terrible, I don't want to force one of you to have to endure that, am I right?" giving a nervous laugh, trying to lighten the mood, though he didn't think this guy had a sense of humor to begin with. A couple of minutes later, and about a million flights of stairs thrown in, they finally reached the aquatic section of the base. Upon reaching the docking bay, Ryan notice something off about one of the ships.

"So… is that thing supposed to be half in the water? Doesn't look like a submarine, more like some… giant, terrifying hunk of metal with more cannons than bolts…" His footsteps slowing as their neared the colossal vessel.

"And you'll have the wonderful experience of sitting in the cargo bay the entire trip. Hope you're not prone to motion sickness" Though the voice seemed to become softer and more distant as the words went on. Turning his head, he noticed the solider was walking away.

"He's not serious, right? A cage doesn't suit me well, or anyone for that matter..." His tail nervously twitching back and forth.

"Hey, you!" A voice yelled in the distance, catching Ryan's attention. A presumed older male was standing on the bow of the ship dressed in a sailor uniform, though extremely decorated with medals and the like. "Yes you, fur ball. Get over here so we can get going already, we're five minutes behind schedule, I don't need you stalling on top of that!" an old man yelled again, seems like he might be the captain of the "ship", best not to get on his bad side. The one hour trip could turn into a living hell if he's not careful, heck, even if he's not careful it could be an hour of hell. Ryan slowly walked towards the ship, nearing a snails pace. Seconds thoughts of them just dumping him in the ocean to drown aside, the idea of going in the holding area for their "cargo" didn't exactly seem too pleasant. Not like he has much of a choice if he wants to get out of this place, though.

As he walked towards the bridge to board the ship, he could feel the stabbing glares from the rest of the crowds. Some curious, others cautious; bordering scared, but mostly it seemed hostile-not like that's a surprise. Thankfully, it wasn't long before he got to the door to step on the ship. What he wasn't planning on was being yanked to the side and escorted through the ship. Of course, no tour of the ship would be complete without a blind fold and cuffs, must come complementary to temporary visitors like him. After a few minutes, he was told to sit where he stood. Unfortunately, there was no chair, just regular air. Toppling over, he heard his escorts and the same voice of that old captain break out in laughter. He swore he heard a few profanities and the words "stupid animal" more than once, but as long as he got out of this place, it was worth it. After they were done with their little schadenfreude, the captain spoke up.

"Once we near the drop off location, these two will bring you up to get you off my ship. These guys will be keeping a keen eye on you. So don't move, don't speak, don't touch anything, and don't even think of doing anything. Any funny business, and you'll be dropped off through the tubes by yours truly, got it?" The voice of that captain rang in his ears.

"Y-yeah, got it. No issues from me" The captains voice was so close he was certain he just shouted in his ear. He tried to rub his ears to save them from the echo and ringing, but to no avail. Being cuffed makes it a tad bit difficult.

"Sure we can't just rough em' up a bit? Just make sure he won't try anything, of course" he heard one of his guards say.

"As much as I'd love to grant you permission, I have my orders specifically saying that no one is allowed to do that." The captains voice trailing off. "Then again, it's not like I'm going to be in this area for much longer to witness anything" the sound of a heavy metallic door closing was heard a second later.

Ryan heard footsteps come towards him shortly after. They're not really going to beat him within an inch of his life, right? Melanie wouldn't allow that, right? No... the captain was joking, that's all! Just stay calm, it'll be fine.

"So, what should we do first?" He heard one say through a slight chuckle.

"Oh, I have plenty of great ideas. He's going to be coming in on a raft out of thick jungle, right?" The other spoke.

"Yeah."

"Got a razor for something that thick?"

"I can go grab one, why do you-Oh, that'll be brilliant"

The sound of the door opening and closing, and foot steps coming closer to him, there was no mistaking they weren't going to follow her orders. Dear god, what're they going to do with a razor?!

"H-h-hey, uhm… what're you-" his words cut off by a hard smack to the side of his head

"Hey, remember the captains words? No speakin', anymore "nonsense", and it's the tubes for you" his laughter bellowing throughout the area.

For fear of any worse predicament that may fall on him, his mouth would've sown itself shut if it could. And it nearly would've, had the ship not disembarked from the dock, causing him to fall over from his sitting position. His head hit a box, thankfully wooden, but still causing a slight yelp.

"Oh, ship's moving, watch your balance" he sarcastically said.

This is going to be one long trip...


End file.
